SARA DANE

A few days back as I was going back home I bumped into a huge pile of random books (it happens to me quite often in Sydney). As usual, I took a closer look at some of them to see if I randomly found any interesting surprises.

Surprisingly enough, I opened a green old thick book and voila! It was written in Spanish. Interesting, I thought. A closer look revealed to me it had been printed in Barcelona in 1958, first edition. It even kept the price ticket on the first page, a thin brownish piece of papirus the deeply reminded me those very old books from my grandparents. 100 pts (about $1 aud)

The book's author is Catherine Gaskin, surprisingly enough I discovered through a friend of mine a few days after, it is signed by herself. The novel's title is 'Sara Dane', whose real name was Mary Rieber and it's the real story about a woman who was convicted in England and expatriated to Australia the late years of the 18th Century to one of the many prisons setup during those times around Botany Bay, and the sudden change to which she succeeded in being a socially respected and prosper woman.

Catherine Gaskin was Irish, she moved to Australia when she was 3 months young and was educated in Sydney. Travelled throughout many corners on the glove. She died just last year, May 2006 in the USA. Amongst many other novels, she wrote 'the summer of the spanish woman'.

I enjoy reading the book these days, makes we wonder how fast things have radically changed in this country from the first seen colonies not so far behind in time. The novel has also been moved on a TV series on 1982. My wife's primary school had devoted mentions and studies about Sara Dane as well.