Our latest book is also one of our earliest: it’s Garry Disher’s classic The Stencil Man, first published in 1988 and one of Garry’s first novels.

The titular stencil man is Martin Linke, a proud and uncompromising figure who has lived in Australia for seventeen years but in 1942 is separated from his children and sent to the internment camps at Holsworthy and then Tatura—essentially for refusing to disavow his German heritage. He finds himself at once in a concentration camp, a prisoner-of-war camp and a prison, battling the bureaucracy that he starts to suspect is deceiving him with its promises, navigating the national and political factions of the other internees, and struggling to hold together the family he has left outside. Soon the only solution seems to be escape…

It’s impossible to read The Stencil Man now without thinking of the more recent detention of new arrivals in Australia. These are different times, but many aspects of Garry’s book seem familiar and prescient: the sense of injustice, the arbitrary exercise of power, the disregard for family ties, even the euphemistic mangling of language—then we had internees, just as we now have detainees and transferees.

But even without these new historical resonances, The Stencil Man stands as a terse, gripping story of endurance and hope. It’s available for $4.99 from the Ligature bookshop, where you’ll also find direct links to the other e-book outlets.

We are very proud and excited to announce the international launch of our first day-and-date title, Abbas El-Zein’s exquisite collection of short stories The Secret Maker of the World. These stories span continents and centuries and are inflected with genres from historical to science fiction; and yet they fit perfectly together.

 The short story as a form is ideally suited to electronic publishing: perfect for stolen moments and unexpected opportunities. We intend to publish more of them, both singly and—as here—in cohesive collections. 

Everyone knows Stephen King’s rather poetic observation that “a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger”, and perhaps Lorrie Moore’s brace of contrasts: “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film”. But my favourite is probably Haruki Murakami’s:

My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them, and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart… 

The Secret Maker of the World is published in Australia and New Zealand by University of Queensland Press and you can buy it now in print and imminently in e-book form. If you’re anywhere else in the world please visit the Ligature bookshop where you can buy it directly or follow the links to the Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks or Kobo stores. 

No matter where you are, you can buy Abbas’s award-winning memoir Leave to Remain, which connects to these short stories in many different and unexpected ways. And keep an eye out for Abbas’s first novel, Tell the Running Water, which we will publish in an updated form next month.

Welcome to the Ligature website. Ligature is a cooperative electronic platform developed by me, Matt Rubinstein. Right now we publish electronic editions of most of my books as well as three award-winning classics of Australian young adult literature by Gillian Rubinstein, who is now better known as Lian Hearn, author of the Tales of the Otori series, and is also my mother.

We are preparing to publish a range of other significant works of Australian and world literature by authors who are not related to me that have never been available electronically before. We are also seeking new work by both published and unpublished authors and will match this work to professional editors or published writers who will develop it to its full potential. Our aim is to build a community of writers and editors who help each other out and are rewarded with a stake in each other’s work.

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