LUCA ANTARA

New to Sydney, impoverished and displaced, Martin Edmond ekes out a living as a taxi driver and in his spare time, scours second hand bookshops in search of Australia’s history. The people he encounters in the bohemian fringes of the city are unconventional, offering a voyeuristic glimpse into Sydney's subculture of heroin weddings, drugs, and casual sex.

Amidst the rare books he savors, Edmond stumbles upon the extraordinary tale of a seventeenth century Portuguese servant, António da Nova, dispatched to find the mysterious" Luca Antara," the fabled land down under. When da Nova is abandoned by his mutinous crew on the West Australian coast, he is rescued from dehydration and certain death by an Aborigine who takes him on an epic walk across northern Australia, in search of Chinese fishermen, who could take him back to Malacca. The lives of Edmond and da Nova and the strange customs and unique social mores of each man’s culture and time intertwine in this quest for a history of Australia; a quest that takes the reader to the far Marquesas, Paris at the time of the Commune, the Portugal of the Fátima revelations, seventeenth century Dutch fatalities on the Houtman Abrolhos and the mysterious first Portuguese voyages into northern Australia. Here is a complete selection of the extraordinary praise heaped on this gorgeous book. Please let me know your thoughts!