"The person who looks at the photographs feels as if they are there."..through the lens of his camera, Mathias Heng tells the people's stories - ordinary lives which are extraordinarily resilient. Many of you who open these pages will not have been to East Timor, but you will be drawn nonetheless, beckoned into the world of the East Timorese - into the lives, the warmth and humanity of a people who never stopped believing in who they are." - wrote Michele M Gierck.