Secret Writing

Secret Writing takes the reader on a journey through two lives, brought together by the secret writing in Albert Namatjira s paintings. Luis and Pearl are very different, and yet a chance meeting at a hospital on the Costa del Sol ignites a quest for both of them. Luis decides to journey to Central Australia so that he can decipher and understand the secret writing he believes is in Namatjira s paintings. When his journal is sent to Pearl, it arouses a curiosity in her, so that she too travels to Central Australia, retracing Luis footsteps. All is not as it seems however, as the brother and sister Luis was staying with, Sweepa and Francine, have somehow been transformed into the brother/sister duo Errol and Helen, who take Pearl in. Both sets of brother and sister appeal to different sides of the two different travellers and in time help them to explore and understand the country, as well as find answers to the multitude of life s questions that arise during their exploration of Central Australia. General readers as well as readers and enthusiasts of quest narratives, Aboriginal culture and the relation of art to landscape will find this an engaging novel. Important for libraries with collections of Australian literature that explore distinctly Australian themes and cultural elements.