TINEKE VAN DER EECKEN
TRA
VER
SE
“Strongly
evocative”
“A fascinating
landscape on
two levels”
- Amanda Curtin - ABOUT THE BOOK
Traverse, a travel memoir, charts the unfolding disintegration of a marriage and a woman’s last-ditch attempt to rescue it by taking a difficult and dangerous trek with her husband.
The landscape of Madagascar proves as rocky as her relationship, and the path forward must be hacked through harsh, uncharted jungle. The terrain, in particular the powerful Bemarivo River, brings her face to face with her own limitations and demons from her past. It forces her to find the strength for this rite of passage and to reconsider her future.
By pushing through a physical feat of endurance and closely examining the emotional truth of her situation in a challenging test of resilience, she must finally resolve her own and her husband’s future, for herself and for her family.
Traverse is a forensic examination of the denouement of a fractured marriage. Here you will find love, confrontation and resolution in a dangerous but captivating land.
T.A.G. Hungerford Award Shortlist
...A travel memoir that navigates the reader through the landscape of Madagascar on the one side and her marriage on the other...
– Australian Arts Review
... This is a sensitively balanced piece of travel writing and personal memoir, evocative
in terms of the place it depicts and the emotional tension between various characters...
– T.A.G Hungerford Awards
… Many times during the trip Tineke pushes to the limits of her levels of endurance, but at the same time she discovers her personal strengths and, ultimately, a path forward for herself and her family…
— WAWriters
... What I felt were the strengths of the manuscript in its earliest form shine through clearly still: an unusual subject matter, a strong evocation of place, and the warmth and honesty of the narrative voice...
– Amanda Curtin
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tineke Van der Eecken is a Belgian-born Australian writer with a background in social sciences and a strong interest in art and culture. She is the author of Traverse, a travel memoir that navigates the reader through the landscape of Madagascar on the one side and her marriage on the other.
Apart from Traverse, she also published Café d’Afrique in 2012, a memoir about her cultural restaurant in Zambia. Her first collection of poems 'A Place To Land' was published by Mulla Mulla Press in 2022.
Her poetry and non-fiction are published in Australia, Europe and in the UK. Tineke lives in Perth.
