Hippy Days Arabian Nights: A Memoir
Spanning five decades and as many continents, Hippy Days, Arabian Nights is a funny, moving and compelling story of a woman whose extraordinary life will never be summarised by the words ‘could have’, ‘might have’, or ‘should have’. Whether it’s following her dreams pursuing what she believes in, or chasing matters of the heart, from the outset Australian artist Katherine Boland has grabbed life by the throat and jumped in feet first.
Part One: Hippy Days
One woman’s experience of life in a hippy community that sprang up in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales as part of the counterculture movement––an overlooked and relatively untapped period in Australian modern history. In 1976, Katherine and her boyfriend John, like many idealistic young students of the time, abandon their university studies and leave Melbourne to pursue a sustainable and independent life in the bush.
Katherine learns how to milk a goat, mill flour, grow vegetables, spin wool and make mud bricks. Hot water, electricity or a flushing indoor toilet are considered luxuries they can do without. Their earnest quest for a Utopian life in harmony with nature is both hilarious and serious: John finds himself reviving their dying goat with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in the back of a ute while on the way to the vet; and, under the stars, alone in the bush, a pregnant and groaning Katherine goes into labour to the accompaniment of New Year’s Eve fireworks and the sympathetic mooing of a neighbour’s cow. Other moments are less absurd, such as when her daughter’s two teenage school friends are abducted and brutally murdered, or Katherine recounts her memories of her father’s suicide when she was sixteen.
However, as Katherine reveals, even the strongest woman is vulnerable and the noblest of dreams can perish, observing as she does that in many families ‘peace, harmony and mung beans’ can founder on the back of drug addiction with its many consequences including family violence and child neglect.
It’s an extraordinary adventure: gruelling and wonderful in equal measure as she faces physical and economic hardship; and the perils of the intense Australian seasons, while negotiating the limits of a self-sustaining existence. A pioneer of a kind, her journey is fulfilling and sometimes dangerous. Katherine survives floods, fires and drought, but in the face of adversity, she remains optimistic and resolute.
When, as a result of a fatal bushfire, her marriage collapses and she abruptly leaves the bush and the life she loves, Katherine is forced to begin again. Back in the city, endeavouring to express and expunge the grief and anger that threaten to overwhelm her, she makes art, returning to the passion that had once led her to art school in the ’70s. Katherine becomes a successful artist, exploring themes of fire and impermanence, using fire itself to make her artwork. She undertakes studio residencies in New York, Italy and France and travels the world.
Part Two: Arabian Nights
Prior to the Egyptian revolution in 2010, Katherine receives an invitation from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture to participate in an International Artists’ Symposium. And so begins her next fateful and totally unplanned foray into the unknown: falling head over heels in love (or is it lust!) with an Egyptian journalist 27 years her junior – at first sight. Her ideas and preconceptions about Islam and the Middle East are challenged as her relationship evolves and deepens over the next 6 years. Katherine repeatedly returns to Cairo to see her lover until the political situation in Egypt becomes so volatile that they are forced to meet elsewhere - in London, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.
Faced with the tyranny of distance, her lover’s jealous inclinations, cultural and religious chasms and an uncooperative Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Katherine and her lover’s feelings are tested to the maximum. Will Gamal’s family’s extreme opposition to their son’s relationship, her dilemma over the age gap, her transient existence and the devastating impact of the Global Financial Crisis on her art career be her undoing?
Drawing on her experiences in Egypt, Katherine provides a ‘up close and personal’ account of contemporary life in Egypt and the country’s trajectory since the revolution. Her intimate depiction of an Egyptian family and the fresh, unschooled perspective on this culture is at once engrossing and informative.
Spanning five decades and as many continents, Hippy Days, Arabian Nights is a funny, moving and compelling story of a woman whose extraordinary life will never be summarised by the words ‘could have’, ‘might have’, or ‘should have’. Whether it’s following her dreams pursuing what she believes in, or chasing matters of the heart, from the outset Australian artist Katherine Boland has grabbed life by the throat and jumped in feet first.
Part One: Hippy Days
One woman’s experience of life in a hippy community that sprang up in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales as part of the counterculture movement––an overlooked and relatively untapped period in Australian modern history. In 1976, Katherine and her boyfriend John, like many idealistic young students of the time, abandon their university studies and leave Melbourne to pursue a sustainable and independent life in the bush.
Katherine learns how to milk a goat, mill flour, grow vegetables, spin wool and make mud bricks. Hot water, electricity or a flushing indoor toilet are considered luxuries they can do without. Their earnest quest for a Utopian life in harmony with nature is both hilarious and serious: John finds himself reviving their dying goat with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in the back of a ute while on the way to the vet; and, under the stars, alone in the bush, a pregnant and groaning Katherine goes into labour to the accompaniment of New Year’s Eve fireworks and the sympathetic mooing of a neighbour’s cow. Other moments are less absurd, such as when her daughter’s two teenage school friends are abducted and brutally murdered, or Katherine recounts her memories of her father’s suicide when she was sixteen.
However, as Katherine reveals, even the strongest woman is vulnerable and the noblest of dreams can perish, observing as she does that in many families ‘peace, harmony and mung beans’ can founder on the back of drug addiction with its many consequences including family violence and child neglect.
It’s an extraordinary adventure: gruelling and wonderful in equal measure as she faces physical and economic hardship; and the perils of the intense Australian seasons, while negotiating the limits of a self-sustaining existence. A pioneer of a kind, her journey is fulfilling and sometimes dangerous. Katherine survives floods, fires and drought, but in the face of adversity, she remains optimistic and resolute.
When, as a result of a fatal bushfire, her marriage collapses and she abruptly leaves the bush and the life she loves, Katherine is forced to begin again. Back in the city, endeavouring to express and expunge the grief and anger that threaten to overwhelm her, she makes art, returning to the passion that had once led her to art school in the ’70s. Katherine becomes a successful artist, exploring themes of fire and impermanence, using fire itself to make her artwork. She undertakes studio residencies in New York, Italy and France and travels the world.
Part Two: Arabian Nights
Prior to the Egyptian revolution in 2010, Katherine receives an invitation from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture to participate in an International Artists’ Symposium. And so begins her next fateful and totally unplanned foray into the unknown: falling head over heels in love (or is it lust!) with an Egyptian journalist 27 years her junior – at first sight. Her ideas and preconceptions about Islam and the Middle East are challenged as her relationship evolves and deepens over the next 6 years. Katherine repeatedly returns to Cairo to see her lover until the political situation in Egypt becomes so volatile that they are forced to meet elsewhere - in London, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.
Faced with the tyranny of distance, her lover’s jealous inclinations, cultural and religious chasms and an uncooperative Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Katherine and her lover’s feelings are tested to the maximum. Will Gamal’s family’s extreme opposition to their son’s relationship, her dilemma over the age gap, her transient existence and the devastating impact of the Global Financial Crisis on her art career be her undoing?
Drawing on her experiences in Egypt, Katherine provides a ‘up close and personal’ account of contemporary life in Egypt and the country’s trajectory since the revolution. Her intimate depiction of an Egyptian family and the fresh, unschooled perspective on this culture is at once engrossing and informative.
Spanning five decades and as many continents, Hippy Days, Arabian Nights is a funny, moving and compelling story of a woman whose extraordinary life will never be summarised by the words ‘could have’, ‘might have’, or ‘should have’. Whether it’s following her dreams pursuing what she believes in, or chasing matters of the heart, from the outset Australian artist Katherine Boland has grabbed life by the throat and jumped in feet first.
Part One: Hippy Days
One woman’s experience of life in a hippy community that sprang up in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales as part of the counterculture movement––an overlooked and relatively untapped period in Australian modern history. In 1976, Katherine and her boyfriend John, like many idealistic young students of the time, abandon their university studies and leave Melbourne to pursue a sustainable and independent life in the bush.
Katherine learns how to milk a goat, mill flour, grow vegetables, spin wool and make mud bricks. Hot water, electricity or a flushing indoor toilet are considered luxuries they can do without. Their earnest quest for a Utopian life in harmony with nature is both hilarious and serious: John finds himself reviving their dying goat with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in the back of a ute while on the way to the vet; and, under the stars, alone in the bush, a pregnant and groaning Katherine goes into labour to the accompaniment of New Year’s Eve fireworks and the sympathetic mooing of a neighbour’s cow. Other moments are less absurd, such as when her daughter’s two teenage school friends are abducted and brutally murdered, or Katherine recounts her memories of her father’s suicide when she was sixteen.
However, as Katherine reveals, even the strongest woman is vulnerable and the noblest of dreams can perish, observing as she does that in many families ‘peace, harmony and mung beans’ can founder on the back of drug addiction with its many consequences including family violence and child neglect.
It’s an extraordinary adventure: gruelling and wonderful in equal measure as she faces physical and economic hardship; and the perils of the intense Australian seasons, while negotiating the limits of a self-sustaining existence. A pioneer of a kind, her journey is fulfilling and sometimes dangerous. Katherine survives floods, fires and drought, but in the face of adversity, she remains optimistic and resolute.
When, as a result of a fatal bushfire, her marriage collapses and she abruptly leaves the bush and the life she loves, Katherine is forced to begin again. Back in the city, endeavouring to express and expunge the grief and anger that threaten to overwhelm her, she makes art, returning to the passion that had once led her to art school in the ’70s. Katherine becomes a successful artist, exploring themes of fire and impermanence, using fire itself to make her artwork. She undertakes studio residencies in New York, Italy and France and travels the world.
Part Two: Arabian Nights
Prior to the Egyptian revolution in 2010, Katherine receives an invitation from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture to participate in an International Artists’ Symposium. And so begins her next fateful and totally unplanned foray into the unknown: falling head over heels in love (or is it lust!) with an Egyptian journalist 27 years her junior – at first sight. Her ideas and preconceptions about Islam and the Middle East are challenged as her relationship evolves and deepens over the next 6 years. Katherine repeatedly returns to Cairo to see her lover until the political situation in Egypt becomes so volatile that they are forced to meet elsewhere - in London, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.
Faced with the tyranny of distance, her lover’s jealous inclinations, cultural and religious chasms and an uncooperative Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Katherine and her lover’s feelings are tested to the maximum. Will Gamal’s family’s extreme opposition to their son’s relationship, her dilemma over the age gap, her transient existence and the devastating impact of the Global Financial Crisis on her art career be her undoing?
Drawing on her experiences in Egypt, Katherine provides a ‘up close and personal’ account of contemporary life in Egypt and the country’s trajectory since the revolution. Her intimate depiction of an Egyptian family and the fresh, unschooled perspective on this culture is at once engrossing and informative.
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2017 | 9780987381323 | 320 pages | Paperback | 234 x 153 mm | 0.35kg | Memoir
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Hippy Days, Arabian Nights, hippy, Southern Highlands, NSW, art, artist, independent living, adventure, love, New York, Italy, France, Cairo, Egypt
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Praise for Katherine Boland and Hippy Days, Arabian Nights
‘A humorous and thought provoking memoir. It kept me reading to see what would happen – how they would end up. The insight into this culture, as well as the hippy-culture of her earlier life were fascinating.’
— Annie Steven, the Big Book Club
‘A wonderful depiction of living without bounds and loving without fear. Katherine writes like she lives: courageously, passionately and without regret.’
— Kimina Lyall, Journalist
‘I know it’s only May but this is my book of the year. It’s an absolutely beautiful book.’
— Ann Creber, The Good Life, 3MR
‘This book is by turns funny, poignant, moving and jaw-dropping. Sometimes sad and often joyful, it is a memoir of a vibrant woman who meets challenges head-on. A towering read!’
— Emma Kathryn, Goodreads
‘Everyone will love it, relate to it, and want to recommend it to their friends. The book is funny at times, sad, heartbreaking, and full of many adventures. It exceeded my expectations on what a memoir would entail!’
—Jennifer Holmes, The Girly Bookclub
‘An honest account that I enjoyed immensely.’
— Ian Lipke, Queensland Reviewers Collective
‘Katherine Boland’s motto: “Feel the fear and do it anyway,” perfectly describes her absorbing story of courageous lifestyle choices. Told with exquisitely crafted prose and a whimsical sense of humour, the captivating imagery – which takes you from the uniqueness of the Australian bush to the exoticism of faraway Egypt – will have you wishing you lived in Katherine’s shoes! A gripping story of true love with an admirable resolution. This should be read by many!’
—Cheryl Koenig OAM, 2009 NSW Woman of the Year, Author & Motivational Speaker
‘This sparkling memoir will take you deeply into the lives of back-to-the-earth, self-sustaining hippies of the 70s, 80s and 90s and a passionate relationship between a feminist free-thinker and an Egyptian man twenty-seven years her junior. Artist Katherine Boland lived on the edge of social mores that most of us cling to. She tells her extraordinary story with humour, insight and a painterly eye.’
— Jill Sanguinetti, educator and author
‘I loved living every page with you. Ohhh what a wonderful lived up, lived low & loved up journey you have had. Thanks for the journey.’
–Mary H, reader
Spanning five decades and as many continents, Hippy Days, Arabian Nights is a funny, moving and compelling story of a woman whose extraordinary life will never be summarised by the words ‘could have’, ‘might have’, or ‘should have’. Whether it’s following her dreams pursuing what she believes in, or chasing matters of the heart, from the outset Australian artist Katherine Boland has grabbed life by the throat and jumped in feet first.
“An enthralling and moving memoir, one that keeps the reader amused, frustrated, indignant at times, but above all, inspired. Katherine is one of those wonderfully rare and brilliant women, who jump in, feet first.””
Listen to Katherine’s interview on ABC Radio National
Read book reviews in The Weekend Australian, Narooma News, Bombala Times, the Queensland Reviews Collective and the Girly Book Club.
Katherine Boland was born in the north of England in 1957, emigrating to Australia with her parents and younger sister in 1961, where she grew up on the Gippsland Lakes in Victoria. Read more.
More from Katherine: Katherine Boland is an artist and author. You can view her artwork and find local stockists on her website. You can get in touch via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or connect on LinkedIn.