AustLit

'A writer. A great Australian writer', Richard Flanagan writes in the foreword to Behrouz Boochani's No Friend But the Mountains (2018, Picador). In a comment designed to spark public conversation regarding Australia's ethical obligation to the incarcerated immigrants on islands inside and outside our coastline, Flanagan puts into play the tenuous category of the 'Australian writer'. Boochani's incorporation into Australia's literary community, enunciates a paradoxical idea of nationhood, one that is flexible, discursive, and open: all the qualities that our politicians oppose. Leaving aside the probability that the writer may not wish to associate himself with Australia in future, Flanagan hypothesises that the national borders policed by Peter Dutton can be discursively reoriented in light of Boochani's contribution. The irony underlying Flanagan's inclusion of Boochani thereby prompts a review of what constitutes a national literary community.' (From introduction)

'The poetry of Yoogum and Kudjela man, Lionel Fogarty, may be hard to follow, often distorting colloquial phrases or standardised grammar to retool the colonising English language into a form of resistance. His description of it here as ‘double-standard English’ conveys Fogarty’s intent to demonstrate how the English language can oppress Aboriginal peoples, forcing non-Indigenous readers to experience what it feels like to be alienated by a literary text. These actions have led Ali Alizadeh to describe his poetry as an expression of his ‘staunchly decolonised, Aboriginal identity’. I would argue that to read Fogarty is not to be positioned as an outsider, but rather to be given the challenge to conceptualise new reading methods as he positions us in a world estranged from itself.'  (Introduction)

'To begin this review, I would like to make the most important of declarations and acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as the traditional owners of the land on which this review was written; and would like to thank Narungga scholar, writer and poet Natalie Harkin for having assisted in the editorial process. I would also like to acknowledge and pay respects to Lionel Fogarty, the Yoogum language group from South Brisbane, and the Kidjela people of North Queensland, whose inestimable linguistic, cultural and spiritual legacy is clear in Lionel Fogarty Selected Poems 1980-2017.'  (Introduction)