Author and filmmaker Emie Roy has curated a book of short stories to bring pandemic stories to life. The book titled The Light At the End of the Tunnel was launched earlier this week.
The book titled ‘The Light At the End of the Tunnel’ was launched by the former Leader of the Opposition in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Jodi Mckay, Dr Harinath ( Multicultural Chair), Emie Roy ( producer) and West Point Shopping Centre Marketing manager Christine Martin, CEO of Migrant Resource Centre Melissa Monteiro, earlier this week at Bowman Hall in Blacktown.
The people from the Sydney suburbs of Blacktown, Liverpool and Parramatta, home to over 80 different nationalities, came together to launch the book.
The book captures the resilience of Australian multicultural society.
“Every human being on this planet has been touched by the pandemic in one way or other. Every one of those experiences is important and needs to be told for the future generations to know what we have been through how we cope and survive,” reads an introduction in the beginning of the book.
“The real life stories in this book will tell you one thing instead of waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel to flash upon us we learned to seek that from within,” it says.
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Indian-origin author Indranil Halder, one of the writers and photographers who contributed to the book, says it is nothing short of a celebration of survival during the worst pandemic our generation is going through.
“It was amazing to experience the launch of our book. It took 10months for 50 authors, including myself, to collaborate on this extraordinary project. The book project is a reflection of emotions as we experienced unprecedented changes to our life during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Mr Halder said.
“Many of the accounts are poignant, sad, and some are humorous. It mainly captures the resilience of our Australian multicultural society and signifies hope for a brighter future. The book is dedicated to the essential workers who worked hard to keep the community safe,” he added.
Stories include The ‘New Virus’, Beating The Isolation Blues and My Lockdown Life by contributors such Dr G K Harinath OAM (Chair of Multicultural NSW), Jasmine Lee and Doug Golding.
It was a joint initiative of the Blacktown City Libraries, Community Migrant Resource Centre( CMRC), The Stories Untold and WestPoint Shopping Centre.
Jill Edmondson said, “I learnt that sometimes, you have to do what makes you happy.”
Indranil Halder says the book is also a great initiative to improve Australia and India’s bilateral relationship.
“It actually highlights human to human interaction, which is identified as one of the three pillars by diplomat Peter Verghese in An Indian Economic Strategy to 2035,” he said.
