Giramondo Publishing
Original Face - Nicholas Jose
The drama begins with a body dumped in south-western Sydney – skinned, with no face. Lewis Lin, taxi driver, photographer, recent arrival from Beijing, happens to be at the scene. With detectives Ginger Rogers and Shelley Swert in pursuit, Lin finds himself drawn into a deadly immigration racket, with a cast which includes a film-maker just in from LA, a Buddhist monk, a millionaire bachelor artist, a masseuse, a maniacal violinist, and a refugee assassin.
Part thriller, part ethnic noir, dark and comic by turns, Original Face offers a sensuous and highly coloured portrait of the jostling energies that make up life in the contemporary Australian city. Drawing its title from an ancient Zen koan, the novel traces the complicated manoeuvres by which people mask their identities, and the accidental pathways by which these hidden selves come to light.
Nicholas Jose was Cultural Counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Beijing from 1987–1990, and has written widely on contemporary Asian and Australian culture. He is the author of seven highly regarded novels, three of which, Avenue of Eternal Peace, The Rose Crossing and The Red Thread, deal with Chinese subjects. He has recently been appointed Professor of Creative Writing at Adelaide University.
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