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Scribe is greatly saddened to learn of the death late in 2022 of Jill Joliffe, author of Balibo, first published by Scribe in 2001, with a subsequent film tie-in edition published to coincide with the film starring Anthony LaPaglia in 2009. In Balibo, Jill reports first-hand on the deaths of five colleagues — the Balibo Five, as they came to be known — after witnessing the first incursions of Indonesian regular troops into East Timor in September 1975. This was a fate that might have befallen her if she hadn’t been evacuated from Dili by the International Red Cross just four days before Indonesian paratroopers attacked the capital on 7 December 1975. Jill spent the next 25 years researching the material for Balibo, arguing that the Australian government and its Western allies were always aware of the circumstances of the killings of the Balibo Five, and that their cover-up of those details was a key factor in Indonesia’s decision to invade and occupy East Timor.

Scribe’s publisher, Henry Rosenbloom, said: ‘Jill was a wonderful, dogged, and intrepid investigative journalist, and she made it her life’s mission to bring the truth about the Balibo Five and the invasion of East Timor to light. We feel honoured to have been able to help her do that.’