Patrick Holland

Before nightfall I rode a taxi through Narita. Neon-lit restaurants and bars and dark cypress. The snow and a wind from the Sea of Japan had all but cleared the streets. Cedar temples sat beneath grey skies. Vending machines lit the wet and empty paths to their gates. I told the driver to go on to the city. Lyrical and...

Arriving late in Kyoto, Patrick Holland cannot find a room for the night. Homeless and disorientated in a place where loitering is not encouraged, his only solution is to ride the trains. The train journey is the starting point for a book that also describes travels through Vietnam, mountains in the Chinese Himalaya, lost cities of the Silk Road, mist-swathed...

Navigatio tells the story of Saint Brendan of Clonfert, a sixth century monk and adventurer, and his legendary quest for the Isle of the Blessed via a gauntlet of monsters, devils, angels, prophets and beautiful maidens. Brendan's battles with the sea and the cosmos bear out what William Faulkner once called 'the human heart in conflict with itself'. This haunting...

'The darkest little room in the world is the human heart,' she said at last. 'Even yours, perhaps, has black secrets that you would never let into the light.' Patrick Holland's haunting novel arises from his experiences in Indochina. An atmospheric literary thriller, it tells the story of Joseph, an Australian journalist living in Saigon. Shortly after reporting on a...