Linda Jaivin
Linda Jaivin is the author of twelve long-form works, including seven novels, five of which are set in Sydney and two in China, as well as the China memoir The Monkey and the Dragon (2001). Her latest book is The Shortest History of China, named the No. 1 book on China published in 2021 by fivebooks.com. Her first novel, Eat Me, was on the Australian best-seller lists for seven months and was translated into more than a dozen languages. She is also an essayist and cultural commentator, writing on such diverse subjects as sexuality, refugees, travel and the arts. She is a literary translator from Chinese specialising in film subtitling. She has also made two radio documentaries for Radio National, one on the subject of privacy (“Nothing to Hide”) and another on the state of arts criticism in Australia (“Situation Critical”). Linda also co-edits The China Story Yearbook published by the Centre on China in the World at the ANU.
All essays by Linda Jaivin
Prison and the Poet
Correctional is a migrant family story, prison memoir, record of a spiritual journey, love story, and morality tale. It is also an examination of race and policing in America and a critique of class on two continents. It is the record of an imperfect life closely and critically examined. Although personal revelations abound, author Ravi Shankar insists this book is not a ‘confessional’ but a ‘correctional’. Most simply, it is, he tells us, ‘the true story of how, in the middle of a seemingly successful life, I suddenly ended up in jail.’
