Contents

Meetings with Adam Lindsay Gordon

On the road to Bendigo: Kerouac’s Australian life

Why I write what I write

Some books are to be dropped into wells, others into fishponds

The cursing of Ivan Veliki

Birds of the puszta

Pure ice

The typescript stops here: or, who does the consultant consult?

Invisible yet enduring lilacs

Stream system

Secret writing

The breathing author

The angel’s son: why I learned Hungarian late in life