Birds of Passage

by Lou Drofenik

'With God's help Australia will welcome me.' So prayed the Maltese before they set off on their long journey to a distant land that would give them and their children a future. A land of hope, of new life and of escape from a culture where class and gender disadvantaged those born in the villages that abound on this Mediterranean archipelago. Birds of Passage is the story of five women who migrated from Malta to Australia in the early part of the twentieth century. Katerina, born in Gozo, orphaned when young, Susanna and Franceska, young and in love with men outside their social circle. Virginia, an English navy officer's wife trapped in a loveless marriage and Cecilja, who chooses the path of a single woman. They pack their belongings and travel to the other side of the world, their promised land, where their lives become intertwined. Each woman has her reasons for migrating, but can past wounds and the pain of forbidden loves be healed in a new country? Birds of Passage looks into the inner world of the Maltese people where history, politics, love, war, migration, the idiosyncratic nature of individuals, the national obsession of trapping birds and a Mediterranean style Catholic culture combine to create a novel that is alive, thought provoking and that celebrates the resilience and dignity of the human spirit.

345 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 25, 2005