A portrait-painter discovers a terrifying side-effect of his talent. A professor of medicine finds himself romantically involved with a dying patient. The lives of two young people are changed forever by a performance of the Mozart Requiem. A self-styled Messiah tries desperately to persuade a writer that he alone can avert a catastrophe about to engulf the city.<br /> <br />Serge Liberman's extraordinary characters rise up off the page like apparitions. Whether in chastened submission to their fates, or in blazing defiance, or in search of meaning and significance, these figures are denizens of real, intimately observed social worlds. Liberman's sinewy, intensely evocative and poignant style, unique in Australian letters, takes us deep into particular lives but always with reference to universal issues of fate, free will, and the moral landscapes of good and evil. His post-Holocaust humanism is passionately committed to the power of storytelling, and enters with special power art's plea for love, compassion, inner freedom, and redemption.<br /> <br />This collection of some of Liberman's finest and most characteristic stories draws upon all six of his published volumes of short fiction. It is offered not only as a summation and a tribute, but as a valuable contribution to the diverse field of Australian multicultural writing.
This bibliography includes all traceable self-contained books, monographs, pamphlets and chapters from books which in some way pertain to Jews in Australia and New Zealand between 1788 and 2008<br /> <br />Born in Russia in 1942, Serge Liberman came to Australia in 1951, where he now works as a medical practitioner. As author of several short-story collections including On Firmer Shores, A Universe of Clowns, The Life That I Have Led, and The Battered and the Redeemed, he has three times received the Alan Marshall Award and has also been a recipient of the NSW Premier's Literary Award. In addition, he is compiler of two previous editions of A Bibliography of Australian Judaica. Several of his titles have been set as study texts in Australian and British high schools and universities. His literary work has been widely published; he has been Editor and Literary Editor of several respected journals and has contributed to many other publications.