The hardest truth of all

After exposing Norma Khouri's lies, Malcolm Knox has to verify another memoir.

This story from the Sydney Morning Herald.

IT WAS while he was penniless on the streets of Nairobi, Kenya, that Cola Bilkuei realised that his most valuable economic asset was his life story. Taken from his Sudanese village as a child and running away from the rebel army after two years' training in Ethiopia, Cola was on what would amount to a 10-year trek southwards to Johannesburg.


He would cross eight borders without documents in an epic journey to freedom that would end in Australia. But in Nairobi, living on the streets, Cola faced a brutal choice: beg, steal or sell his story.

"I would go near the Hilton hotel and find Westerners to tell my story to," Cola says. "I didn't need to make anything up. My true story would make people sympathetic enough."
Cola's true story earned him passage through his darkest nights. Once he made it to South Africa, he told his story to a human rights lawyer, Jacob van Garderen, and a Catholic priest, Father Dominic Baldwin. They financed his accommodation and schooling for several years. Then, when Cola told his story to Australian diplomats in South Africa, he was granted permission to move here and eventually become a citizen.

I first heard of Cola Bilkuei in 2006, when he sought help writing a book about his experiences. He was working with Phillip Ross, an arts officer at the Blacktown Migrant Resource Centre, under an Arts NSW scheme to fund migrant arts projects. Cola secured a deal with the publisher Pan Macmillan for his memoir, Cola's Journey, which is published this month.
Read the full story at the SMH online.