Indonesia Travels and work, 2001-2002
Indonesia was the location of my first teaching job overseas. Previously I lived in the UK, picking up temp jobs now and then to fund my excursions around Asia, in between times writing novels that weren't making any money. Like many an English teacher abroad, I saw teaching English as a way to combine travel and work, and in Indonesia, I pulled it off quite well, with frequent weekend jaunts to Bogor and climbs up the volcanic Mount Salak, and excursions to the coastal town of Cirebon. There was also the three week journey around Java during Christmas/Ramadan, and my escape from the country when my contract was done. Sounds perfect, except it belies the fact that I never much cared for Jakarta. But that's another story.
Delhi Deadlines by Sheldon Smith
A washed out journalist, posted to India to cover a bloody election campaign, uncovers truths about his son's life - and death - in the country, truths that test loyalties forged in the war zones of Bosnia and Rwanda. A fiercely evocative narrative of modern-day India, filled with the clamour and hot stinks of its capital, this is a novel of death woven through with life.
"The writing is very very good... the mysteriousness of Wyndham's death and the narrator's involvement will entice the reader to keep reading." - 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Expert Reviewer
