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The first Ellen is a Carmelite nun, born near Skibbereen during the Great Hunger. The second Ellen is a New Age convert, born in Sydney.
They are soul-sisters in this family saga spanning over 100 years of land rights and republicanism in Ireland and Australia.
Time is distorted, and the unreal seems commonplace, as the characters battle their natural adversaries without the usual constraints of logicality. Following in the footsteps of the early Carey, Borges, Marquez, de Bernieres, and Fowles, Van Rijswijk uses her knowledge of the sea, and her antipodean base of Tasmania, to create a unique voice, taking the reader on a descriptive journey from the mythical antipodean island state of Esmania, past a small island to the east called Aotearoa, Antartica, Tierra del Feugo, Paraguay, the Cape of Africa, and back to the Antipodean mainland Incognita.
“Philomena van Rijswijk’s poetry is a sensual treat. As with her fiction, there seems to be no topic off-limits in Bread of the Lost; no intimacy she isn’t willing to explore. The poetry moves across a wide range of themes, but all of the poems are charged with emotive power, mixed imagery and rich textures, so heady at times, that breaks for breath are needed. All of the senses are engaged.”