In A Woman of Independence - a story of love and the birth of a new nation - Kirsty Sword Gusmao tracks the tumultuous struggle for East Timor's independence and her own fraught quest for love. After visiting East Timor in the early 1990s, Sword Gusmao began work as an undercover activist in Jakarta. As an invaluable operative within the independence movement, she soon came into contact with its jailed resistance leader, Xanana Gusmao. Through their correspondence, smuggled in and out of prison during his captivity, they developed an unlikely but remarkable bond. As their love deepened, independence became much more than just a political goal. Such material could easily have rendered A Woman of Independence a gushy and florid affair, but Sword Gusmao maintains an unadorned documentary style throughout. Her observations on her and Xanana's relationship and the frustration of their initial separation are delivered with rare candour, as is her inner struggle to reconcile two vastly different worlds. The political has always been personal, but rarely has the personal been so entwined with the political.

Peter Muntz is a freelance writer and bookseller. C. 2003 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors

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