Forbes Shire Council plans to make a hand-bound book of short stories by Paul Wenz available to the public after bookbinder Sabine Pierard presented her edition to Mayor Rhonda Keane yesterday.

The Wenz book, one of just 150 copies printed, will be kept at Town Hall until it becomes part of the Paul Wenz Collection at Forbes Shire Library.

Ms Pierard’s work is number 81 of 150 printed copies, each featuring short stories by Paul Wenz published in both English and French.

The books featured in the ‘Double Bush Binding’ exhibition which toured Forbes several years ago and has since travelled to France and Japan.

Each copy is printed on hand made paper - made by an Aboriginal group in northern NSW - and hand bound by a variety of professional artists, from Australia, France, Japan, North America and Switzerland.

Wenz, who farmed Nanima Station up until his death in 1939, wrote his stories in French, but they have been translated into English for this volume by Australian writer Frank Moorhouse and Margaret Whitlam, the wife of former Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam.

The stories also feature eight illustrations by Daniel Pata.

While the contents of the 150 books are identical, Ms Pierard bound her copy in kangaroo leather and adorned the cover with river gum bark.

Forbes Shire Council purchased Ms Pierard’s volume while it was on exhibition at Mezzanine Style as part of Double Bush Binding.

“This is absolutely beautiful,” Mayor Keane said, accepting the book yesterday.

“I am thrilled and so proud. This will take pride of place in Forbes,” she said.

Ms Pierard returned to Forbes to present the book to council and while here, helped from the Paul Wenz Society, along with Forbes writer Merrill Findlay, retired academic Dr Maurice Blackman and Parisian couple Dr Jean-Paul and Monique Delamotte, who established the Atelier Litteraire Franco-Australien (ALFA), a French-Australian literary exchange group.

More on the Paul Wenz Society in Saturday’s Forbes Advocate.