Review: PROHIBITED ZONE, Alastair Sarre

• first published Wakefield Press 2011
  
• ISBN 978-1-86254-943-2
• 363 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Wakefield Press)

Steve West, mining engineer and ex-footy star, just wants a dirty weekend in town, but he can't stop people telling him their secrets. When crusading Kara incites a breakout in the desert, Westie finds himself her reluctant accomplice. Soon he's got a runaway asylum seeker in tow, and all the world, it seems, on his tail.

There is a way out - but it's in the prohibited zone.

My take

The Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre (IRPC) was an Australian immigration detention facility near the village of Woomera in South Australia. Unauthorised arrivals, which had exceeded the capacity of other detention facilities. It was originally intended to hold 400 people, however at its peak in April 2000 it had nearly 1,500 detainees. After ongoing public pressure in response to several well publicised riots from 2000, accusations of human rights abuses, and capacity issues, the centre closed in April 2003. (Wikipedia)

Thirteen years on the issue of how to handle illegal immigrants still plagues Australia's political parties and so the issues behind this novel are still familiar to Australia readers. It wasn't really until after the closure of Woomera that Australians became aware of how inhumanely its residents had been treated. (See Four Corners programme)

Set very squarely in the South Australian landscape with lots of landmarks that local readers will be familiar with, PROHIBITED ZONE is very readable, the characters colourful, and the scenarios quite credible.

My rating: 4.5

About the author
Alastair Sarre was born in Leigh Creek, a coal-mining town in the outback of South Australia. He studied forestry at Australian National University and worked for a mining company for a couple of years before returning to Canberra to complete a writing diploma. He has worked as a science editor and freelance writer specialising in forestry and spent time in Japan before moving with his family to the Adelaide Hills. Prohibited Zone, his first novel, was shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript.