Robert Holman (1919-2005) was a fettler on the railways of New South Wales, who served in Asia during World War Two. He subsequently recorded his reminiscences of both his childhood and war within several handwritten notebooks and drawing books. Sydney-based writer Peter Thomson was born and raised in the Fiji Islands. While serving as a diplomat, he opened the Fiji embassy in Tokyo in 1980 and lived in Japan for the ensuing four years. His book on the 1987 coups d'etat in Fiji, Kava in the Blood, was the recipient of the E.H. McCormick prize for non-fiction.