Shooting Balibo: Blood and Memory in East Timor

Tony Maniaty

Sep 2009 · Bolinda · Narrated by Humphrey Bower

5.0

1 review

Audiobook

13 hr 32 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

When foreign correspondent Tony Maniaty goes back to Timor for the first time since he fled for his life thirty years before, he discovers a land of ghosts - some he left behind, and some he's brought with him. He's there to watch five young actors play out the last days of five friends of his - men who were murdered by the Indonesian army in one of the most infamous incidents (and cover-ups) in Australian foreign affairs. He's also there to talk to some friends who survived - Gusmao, Ramos-Horta - people he knew as guerrillas and who now run the country. When he arrives, past and present, fiction and fact begin to overlap: at the Hotel Turismo he's assigned room eleven - the room he had in 1975. And, he later discovers, the room the actor playing his young self had been staying in. Old contacts appear out of the jungle, and disappear into rooms of state. But the most harrowing overlap is when he watches five young men being taken into a shack on the outskirts of Balibo, towards death.

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5.0

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About the author

Tony Maniaty has been a television news correspondent, producer and media lecturer for more than thirty years, and has written two novels, The Children Must Dance, and Smyrna. He is currently Senior Lecturer in International Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Humphrey Bower is a gifted and versatile actor. Since obtaining a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature at Oxford University, he has worked extensively in theatre, television and audiobook narration. Humphrey won the prestigious Audie Award (US) for his performance of The Family Frying Pan by Bryce Courtenay, and was shortlisted for an Audie Award for his performances of Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan and Brother Fish by Bryce Courtenay. Humphrey's sensitive and intelligent readings are highly regarded and he is well-known for his capacity to perform a variety of accents.

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