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Australia in Three Books single work   review  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Australia in Three Books
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'For the longest time, the Australia I knew was all myth. Early reading didn’t dispel this languid stereotype because part of that upbringing was made possible only by the claustrophobia of the culture itself. It was a narrow existence, filled with outback hardship or romance novels, bush memoirs (how embarrassing that I appear to have done the same thing) and writers from America or worse, England. In short, the authors I knew were not a representative sample of this country. This is not a problem if your range is bigger and broader, but to the extent that my range left my cultural Umwelt at all, it stopped at Not Without My Daughter. Life, then, is about pushing back the borders of our observable universe. Especially when such a quest reveals much about the place we call home.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Meanjin vol. 79 no. 1 Autumn 2020 19046095 2020 periodical issue

    'In this edition's cover essay, Gomeroi poet, essayist and scholar Alison Whittaker takes on the idea of white fragility and asks 'Has white people becoming more aware of their fragilities and biases really done anything for us—aside from finding a new way to say 'one of the good ones' or worse, asking us to?'. Whittaker aims squarely at a progressive white culture that sees an elevated racial conscience as a path to post-colonial innocence.

    'In other essays, Timmah Ball asks that most fundamental of questions: Why Write? 'Were they looking for the next successful blak book.' while Anna Spargo-Ryan writes powerfully on the often-brutal history of abortion in women's lives and men's politics. Rick Morton shares his version of Australia in Three Books and Maxine Beneba Clarke considers risk and writers' acts of courage.' (Publication summary)

    2020
Last amended 25 Feb 2021 08:30:56
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