The Czech-Australian journalist Nicolas Rothwell could be described in many ways, but perhaps most economical is as wanderer and wonderer: across territories, eras, peoples and cultural boundaries. This collection of essays takes us to the Australian interior, to the High Tatra in Slovakia, to the ruptures and upheavals of central Europe in the 1980s, and to the prison camps of the Soviet Union: Gorky, Tolstoy, Tarkovsky, Darwin, Lawrence are some of our travelling companions.
Its title piece is an astonishingly suggestive and beautiful linking of the life and times of Jewish mystic and cult leader Jacob Frank to the latter-day exploration – or exploitation – by outsiders of the Aboriginal artists of the Western Desert. What is the nature of the sacred, and its symbols, asks Rothwell. What happens when such boundaries are breached? His own quest is to probe “the borders of what we can know” – what is there but to try?
• Quicksilver by Nicolas Rothwell is published by Text (£12.99). To order a copy for £11.04 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
