Julia Paradise: Text Classics

Shanghai, 1927: hot, teeming, mysterious. Kenneth Ayres, a disciple of Freud, is an anonymous expatriate treating the lonely wives and daughters of British colonials. When Julia Paradise, the wife of an Australian missionary, is sent to him for psychoanalysis, he is seduced into her world, a kaleidoscope of incestuous eroticism and grotesque hallucinations.

But Ayres hides an even darker secret...

Rod Jones is the author of five novels, short stories and travel writing. His first novel, Julia Paradise, won the fiction prize at the 1988 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and was runner-up for France's Femina Etranger prize. It has been published throughout the world. His third novel, Billy Sunday, was the 1995 Age Book of the Year for fiction and won the 1996 National Book Council Award for fiction. Nightpictures was shortlisted for the 1998 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Swan Bay (2003) was shortlisted for both the New South Wales and Queensland Premier's Literary Awards.

'Jones should be counted amongst Australia's most interesting and talented novelists. His gift lies in his ability to write with crisp clarity about the murky and the intangible; with confidence and force about the uncertain; with detachment about passion and with passion about detachment.' Australian Book Review

'Utterly original...a remarkable accomplishment.' New York Times

'Marked by lush, erotic imagery and subtle, complex handling of motifs, this slim and powerful first novel from Australia is a carefully controlled psychological study.' Publisher's Weekly