A book I've just read

In the last few months I've been reading novels. I've just finished reading the book pictured here:"A Woman of Independence: A story of love and the birth of a new nation" by Kirsty Sword Gusmao. I've wanted to read books that are in written as a story but that I can also learn from at the same time. This book hits the mark. Kirsty is an Australian who married Xanana Gusmao before he becamethe first, and still the current president of East Timor. Kirsty's book decribes her support of East Timor's struggle for independence and her relationship with Xanana Gusmao, the leader of the of Resistance struggle.

The book begins in 1990 with her first trip to East Timor, which at the time had been under Indonesian occupation since 1975, and follows through the 1990's to the bloodshed in 1999 that occurred after the East Timorese voted for Independance and then the early years of East Timor's birth as a nation. The book is from a very personal perspective of East Timor and Xanana Gusmao including the testing times their relationship endures. They fall in love via secret letters written when Xanana is in prison in Jakarta and Kirsty is his english teacher and a supporter of other imprisoned East Timorese.

I recommend reading it! If I didn't already know the ending I would have had a lot of problems putting the book down once I had started. It was a great way to understand more about East Timorese independence from a very personal perspective.