Liberated by a spirit of adventure, restlessness, greater opportunities, and in a bid to start anew, more than one million Australians now live overseas.
'Leaving Paradise' is about the expat experience, but goes one step further – it is not some whimsical, holiday-romance tale, but about the "new expats": those souls that decide to uproot their lives, families and careers and join the global community. It's a timely book, too, with a recent study finding that the typical Australian living in the UK at the moment is "in her 20s, working as a professional and earning the equivalent of $50,000 to $150,000 a year".
The author, Sonia Harford, writes from first-hand experience, from her "backpacking rite-of-passage", which leads to her move to Amsterdam (where she had a child) and Rome. Her book profiles the emotional highways and personal stories of our exiles and features big names such as Peter Carey. We ride Harford's own emotional highway through the expat experience: from hopeful and promising beginnings, to career highlights (covering the war crimes' trial of Slobodan Milosevic) and finally her much-longed-for return to Australia.
Expats, whether they're business professionals, artists, waiters or students, are guided by the heart, and this book is a lush, nostalgic exploration of Australian expats. Backed up by thorough research, this book is all encompassing. Although it comes from the point of view of a professional journalist, it thoroughly resonates with expats of all ages and definitions.
