Australie

Banned in 1916, "The Straights Impregnable" . the 'best book on Gallipoli' now returns to print. As a young soldier in the battlefields of Gallipoli, Sydney Loch witnessed the horror of war first hand. His journal of what he saw became a book on his return to Australia. Hoping to avoid military censorship, his publishers dubbed Sydney's book a novel: 'The Straits Impregnable'. But as the war ground on and numbers of casualties grew, the publisher inserted a note saying the book was in fact true. 'The Straits Impregnable', which had enjoyed huge literary acclaim, was immediately withdrawn from sale by the censors. Sydney Loch's experiences in the war, shaped his life afterwards. With his wife, Joice Loch, he would go on to work in refugee camps in Poland and Palestine, at the Amerian Farm School in Thessaloniki and finally at Ouranopolis near Mt.Atho. In 'To Hell and Back', historians Susanna and Jake de Vries have recovered and edited Sydney's book for a new generation of readers - and written a biography of his remarkable life. 248p. illus. index Book