The Naked Fish

There are books of autobiography and there are books about religious faith, but not often is a book a life story and also a faith journey. The Naked Fish is a memoir that arises out of an overlooked strata of Australian society: the Christian middle-class family, where faith and feeling run deep.

Ian Hansen's book tells his story of growing up in the 1930s and 1940s in a suburban, church-going family. It follows the author as he becomes first a teacher, then a university lecturer, first a father and then a grandfather. As the world changes around him and his faith is tested to the limit, his story becomes also a meditation on the search for meaning in life, as he describes his search for a view of the world that will satisfy his spiritual yearnings.

Praise for The Naked Fish:
'A moving demonstration of a man's continuity of faith, which gives the text a kind of glow, from chapter to chapter, even as heart-breaking incidents are chronicled.' - Barry Hill

'A powerful account of how the author has to come to terms with dramatic social change and has been forced to readjust his religious view of the world.' - Tim Costello

Ian Hansen grew up in Adelaide and Melbourne during the 1930s and 40s. He became a teacher during the 1950s, working both in Australia and England with his wife, Dorothy. Ian Hansen has three children and seven grandchildren and now lives in Melbourne.