Books

The magical story of a woman in search of freedom and joy.

Maria is an Australian of Greek Cypriot ancestry born and bred in Adelaide. The youngest daughter of an Orthodox family. She had avoided arranged marriages and permanent employment has evaded her.

She applies for a job with a remote Aboriginal Community in the Great Western Desert in Western Australia. She believes she will only stay for three months and stays for seven years.

She comes to understand that traditional can mean many different things and learns to suspend judgement and marinate herself in a Aboriginal culture that although traditional is also progressive, resourceful, romantic and loving.

She falls in love with the Kimberly and a traditional bushman. Maria is a feminist. How does she reconcile her independence - so hard fought for within her Cypriot Orthodox family - to fall into a traditional bush life with the man she loves and his wide and extended family, and their expectations and beliefs, in the remote outback.

She explores and begins to understand what ‘country' means through her love for a Walmajarri man and his tribe. How language and storytelling united the lovers and how cultural expectations kept them apart.

She is challenged, she is accepted, she is loved.

Will she make a life in the desert?