In her book, Tarle shows that people do not like the term "diaspora" and that they do not identify with it, the book's editor, director of the Institute for Migration Research, Marina Perić Kaselj, said.
The book is not just about the Croats in Australia between 1945 and 1990, but also about the broader issue of the return of Croatian emigrants, which is why it can be seen as "a critique of the migration ideology which obfuscates the terms diaspora, migrant, refugee, asylum seeker, foreign worker and so on," said Professor Tado Jurić from the Catholic University in Zagreb.
Tarle said she had been dealing with this issue for at least 30 years and that the book goes even further into the past, when her grandfather fled to Germany in 1951, which sparked her interest in "the trauma of those who left and those who stayed."
Tuga Tarle is a professional diplomat and promoter of Croatian culture in the world, as well as a socially engaged writer and novelist. She received her doctorate in interdisciplinary humanities from the University of Zadar in 2022.
The book was published by the Institute for Migration Research.