Stopover
During a journey to Fiji just 39 days after the 2000 coup, Bruce Connew receives an invitation to a local chief's funeral. His mission: "to photograph the ironies" revealed among the Indian-Fijian attendees. The ironies he finds -- beauty among such a dark scene -- is the inspiration behind Stopover (University of Hawai'i Press, $19.95), a story of migration in photographs and words. Connew's heartfelt, stark photos and captions depict the plight of migrants tolerating corrupt rulers in the sugar-cane fields as well as the swelling numbers of Indians who left Fiji because dil uth gaye ("the heart is no longer there"). Bolstering the theme of displacement is a text by Brij V. Lal, who shares the story of Arjun Kaka, a community elder who lived off the land as his relations died or moved away. Lal brings Kaka to Australia, where Kaka's loved ones have emigrated. This time the irony is filtered through his eyes: the Fijian finds it odd that his family has worked so hard to escape Fiji, only to be trapped by Western conventions far away from the beauty of the land. Lal's words and Connew's photos will cause readers to pause and seek out the complicated stories of the people they meet on their travels. -- Brooke Morton
Listening to the Wind
Author Tim Robinson is smitten with Ireland's west coast: the limestone cliffs, the rolling green- ery, the enduring culture. His first two books delved into the Aran Islands, where he moved in 1972. Now a Connemara resident, Robinson explores another western region in Ireland, where he has lived since 1984. Connemara: Listening to the Wind (Penguin Books, $17) chronicles life in the village of Roundstone as only a resident could. In this first volume of a Connemara trilogy, Robinson helps readers imagine that they are actually there, walking across damp bogs, sinking a foot deep into the turf, wearing heavy rain boots and meeting hollow-cheeked sheep farmers, struggling tailors and working mothers. Fables and written records are woven through his first- hand adventures. "A bog is its own diary; its mode of being is preservation of its past," he writes. "The current page is the brightest and fullest, but whatever grows and dies on the surface, together with whatever is blown into it from neighbouring areas, will be pickled in the acidic waters, buried under the remains of future years' growth and added to the layered record." With words so vivid, you'll feel as if Robinson is inviting you to his home. -- Ashley Knaus
