Diane Armstrong

Diane Armstrong is a prolific, award-winning journalist whose book-length publications began with a memoir of family history, Mosaic (1998), and The Voyage of their Life (2001), set on the SS Derna, which brought Polish-born Armstrong, her parents and 500 refugees to Australia in 1948. In 2004 Armstrong turned to fiction with Winter Journey, about a Polish-Australian forensic dentist. Now we have Nocturne, which, although it features one or two Australian characters, takes place in Warsaw, England and Germany during World War II. It is a gallant and gut-wrenching story but a difficult book to review, because it suffers from inadequate editing.

We read that 100,000 displaced persons will arrive in Australia in the next eighteen months. Is there no way that the people of Australia can have some control over these sweeping invitations to displaced persons. Surely there is no room in Australia for hordes of foreigners …’ reads a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald. Does it sound familiar? However, the date is 18 November 1948, a time when aggrieved readers were bombarding the papers, protesting against the influx of postwar refugees.