Bøker av Valerie Volk

She is the one I really want; that wandering spirit, the woman who gave birth to my grandfather and could not let him go, even when he had separated himself from her, from the land of his birth, and from all that he had known.It's a long way from a small southern German village to a farm in New South Wales, but in 1889 Anna Werner sets off alone on a foolish mission, to search for her son who has disappeared in Australia. From Hamburg to the exuberance of the 'Marvellous Melbourne' of the 1800s and the immigrant life of the Riverina German farming community of Jindera, Anna discovers as much about herself as she does about the thriving country she encounters.In Search of Anna is based on the true story of one woman's long and perilous journey from the small German village of Lewin, to the farms of Jindera in Australia. It has been extensively researched and is full of vivid detail about life in Germany and Australia during the 1800s. It is a sensitive exploration of the relationship between mothers and sons, and tells of a woman's search for herself.

I am indeed a partof all those I have met,and must learn who I am.A politician, a cooking contest winner, a troubled clergyman, a much-married socialite, a TV evangelist - what could they have in common? Why do they (and half a million others) travel to Oberammergau, the small German village that has staged a Passion Play every tenth year since 1634?In a four-day bus trip, very different people are drawn together for diverse reasons, similar to the varied group whom Chaucer brought to life in his Canterbury Tales. But these travellers do not tell invented stories to entertain each other; they reveal to us with raw and often painful honesty their own lives and motives.Shortlisted for the 2014 OMEGA Writers CALEB Poetry Prize

Though the poems in this book take the reader on a South American journey from Chile to the Galapagos, it is not just another travel book. It's a personal invitation in the form of a poem a day to join the writer in strange and exotic places. The spectacular beauty of cascading water at the Iguassu Falls, a weather-beaten face in a Peruvian marketplace, the roasted guinea pig on the Last Supper table in Cusco Cathedral's altar picture these were among the triggers for the daily poem. Of Llamas and Piranhas is an individual record of moments that became memories.';Valerie Volk has an eye for the fine detail. The quirky insight is something her poet's eye latches on to and the result is poetry that is dazzling in its attention to the complexities of human nature and of nature itself. Volk delves into these complexities and uses them to craft fine poetry that lingers long after the book is closed.' Antonia Hildebrand (Editor, Polestar Writers' Journal)';Valerie Volk's collection of poetic postcards from Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and The Galapagos is a literary record of her tour of South America. It's also more. These poems will spark an interest whether you've visited this beguiling continent or not!' Rob Walker (poet and critic)';In Of Llamas and Piranhas Volk walks us through the jungles of the Amazon, the ruins of Machu Picchu, the crowded streets of Buenos Aires and the churches of Santiago with the alacrity, concision and passion that can only be experienced through the eyes of the poet.' Mark Worthing (author and editor)

It was an act of simple kindness for an Australian couple to take two Czech refugees from post World War II Europe into their working-class home. They could never have foreseen the tensions these sophisticated Europeans would create, or the life-changing impact they would have on their teenage daughter. A Promise of Peaches explores sympathetically the culture clashes of 1950s immigration, not unlike those of today, and shows with sensitivity the unfolding of adolescent sexuality.';A Promise of Peaches is a thoughtful and deeply compassionate examination in verse of female adolescence and cultural tensions in Melbourne in the early 1950s. Valerie Volk has the reader sympathising almost equally with all her main protagonists, despite the steadily mounting conflicts between them. Mutual incomprehension between and within the ';old' Australians and the ';new' is dramatically portrayed and its climactic resolution persuasively drawn.' Geoff Page';I read this manuscript in one sitting, without pause, a testimony to its readability and its inherent interest A verse novel has proved ideal for the task: the work is compressed and the form suits the intensity of the subject The climax, when the adolescent Claire begins her sexual awakening in response to Viktor, is handled with tact and expertly delineates the responses of the two. The triumph of the novel is this respect for all the main characters even Irena, who could be a standard ';femme fatale'.' Thomas Shapcott (Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing, University of Adelaide)