My first impressions, of this book: I like it!!
As has happened, in the case of a few other such books. (There are NOT many!) I identify and so much appreciate someone else putting these experiences and feelings into words/print!

All Australians Now

by

Willem van Ravenstein

For the ten-year old Dutch boy who arrived with his migrant parents at Fremantle one intolerably hot day in 1950, Australia was an alien, almost incomprehensible land.
A clear-eyed observer with an outsider’s perspective, the child grew up and was educated in postwar Perth, where he was gradually transformed into an Australian. The experience was a complex, testing and sometimes confusing process.
Like teenagers everywhere, young Willem asserted his identity in opposition to his parents and their values. As the only child of a disciplinarian father, this was a particularly bitter struggle.
There was, too, a growing awareness that the heart of his family’s life was gnawed by an obscure mystery – something eventually revealed to be a very dark secret indeed.
This wise, lucid coming of age memoir has much to say about Australia as it was then, and how it became what it is now. It is one of those rare, timeless works that shall continue to speak across the generations.

ISBN 978-0-85905-295-5, (New 2010), illust., 221pp, 510grams, $35.00.
Post in metro Perth is $5.70. Near country $7.70. Other states $11.70 in AP yellow Express bag.

Hesperian Press
P O Box 317, Victoria Park, 6979, Western Australia.
Tel. 08 9362 5955, Fax. 08 9361 2333
Email. books@hesperianpress.com
www.hesperianpress.com

The book may be available at the HOLLAND FESTIVAL, Rembrandt Club, Dunheved Circuit, St Marys, last weekend of March, 2011.