HASLUCK LIBRARY

Cover notes:
"Chinese Journey is a vivid, impressionistic journey into contemporary China by two of Australia's foremost writers. In 1981, Nicholas Hasluck and C.J. Koch visited China at the invitation of the Chinese Writers' Association. As part of the first official delegation of Australian writers to enter China following years of separate development, they are especially well placed to record and evoke a sense of life in China at a pivotal time.

Nicholas Hasluck's response to that experience is a delicately poised and cadenced poem sequence, informed by the events and exchanges of the journey, and by the post's acute ear for the language and rhythms of the place.

C.J. Koch explores, in evocative and broad ranging prose, the rich physical world he encountered - its landscape, architecture, cities - and the sense of a people and their art in transition. The work is enriched by the author's feeling for history and his knowledge of traditional Chinese literature and culture.

Chinese Journey, then, is a fascinating collaboration, a rich joining of voices and genres that provides an intelligent and imaginative insight into an extraordinary country."