What the critics have said about Helen Hodgman:

‘Owing nothing to other Australian novelists yet at the same time distinctively Australian. There’s formidable talent here.’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘Hodgman is quite an experience, quite a writer.’ GUARDIAN

‘.more than passing funny.’ RITA MAE BROWN

‘.gives much more satisfying entertainment than Neighbours ever could.’ 7 DAYS COMMUNIST PARTY WEEKLY

‘Helen Hodgman’s subversive sense of humour had me reaching for my pencil to mark the funny bits.’ AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW

‘.scenes that might have been shot by Fellini hiding in the bushes.’ AMERICAN PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

‘Matindi bounced about, a cartoon figure forever assaulted, having her things stolen, her nose broken, being set light to. How slight this Matindi is, how obstinate, shut off and mysterious, resisting my intention to invent her by making her part of my story at the expense of her own.’

As the narrator struggles to make sense of her own life and the lives of those around her it is Matindi’s elusive story which affects her most profoundly, leaving her to question her own place in the world. Funny, poetic and powerful the interwoven tales that make up Waiting for Matindi bob like sailing boats on an ever-changing sea.