The Mountain

It is 1968 and Papua New Guinea is approaching independence, with change coming on every side. Leonard, an English filmmaker, travels with Rika, his Dutch wife, to a remote highland village to record its life on film; the people there have kept their customs and art through many generations, and Rika is captivated by the designs they paint on bark cloth. Down in Port Moresby the new university is a place of ambition and youthful idealism, and of friction between local students such as Milton, a fiery would-be playwright, and outsiders such as Martha, who becomes Rika's friend. Rika's encounter with the brothers Jacob and Aaron alters everything for all of them, as a whole country braces against the onrush of the modern world.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Love, Politics (assigned by AI)

Set in

Papua New Guinea, from 1968

First published

2012

Author's age

66 when first published

ISBN

9781741666502 (Vintage Australia, Australia)

9780143790891 (Penguin, Australia)

More

Wikidata