AustLit logo

AustLit

Issue Details: First known date: 2019... 2019 Stories from the South : Literary Depictions of Indonesians in Australia
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Indonesian immigrants use Australia as a mirror by which they examine and perceive their homeland, but not all in the same way, nor is the experience of liminality in their host country the same. Rather, ethnicity seems to trump national origin when it comes to how Indonesians in Australia perceive their hostland and in their patriotic attachments to homeland. This difference in attitude to both homeland and hostland stems largely from the differing status of ethnically native Indonesians, who only temporarily reside in Australia, and ethnic-Chinese Indonesians, who are often permanent residents. Ethnicity and residency status are related in this case, partly because the long victimization of Chinese Indonesians in Indonesian history contributes to their reason for immigrating to Australia in the first place. This is the reality depicted, and whose consequences are dramatized, in the two works of fiction considered here: a collection of short stories titled Satu Pertanyaan dari Selatan: Kumpulan Cerpen Berlatar Australia (A Question from the South: A Collection of Short Stories Set in Australia), whose characters and authors are mostly Indonesian students studying in Australia; and Rani Pramesti’s digital graphic memoir The Chinese Whispers, which represents the experience of ethnic-Chinese Indonesians. Juxtaposed, the two texts dramatize the extent of the differences in these two groups.'  (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Antipodes Articulating Southeast Asia and the Antipodes vol. 33 no. 2 2019 21208476 2019 periodical issue 'This issue goes to press ten months into the year of living with COVID-19, which is nearly a full year after the date on the volume’s cover. Part of me wanted to be coy about this delay, simply elide the disjunction between the published date and the actual publication. But to tell the truth, it seems more important to acknowledge where we are and how we are. Antipodes has been running behind schedule for the past few issues, and the patience of our contributors and subscribers has been much appreciated. The delays have yielded some fortuitous timing, such as the publication of Soren Tae Smith’s thoughtful piece on the mosque bombing in Christchurch in the June 2019 issue, apparently just a few months later than the event (although actually a year delayed). “This Is a Difficult Piece to Write” was both a timely and an atemporal reflection on the literal and figurative tragedy of a world that seems increasingly divided at the same time that it finds unity in disasters, naturally and humanly induced. So perhaps it is fitting that Antipodes lags behind time, for now, offering an opportunity to reflect on the present in the past' (Brenda Machosky, Editorial introduction) 2019 pg. 315-331
Last amended 1 Sep 2021 10:54:49
315-331 Stories from the South : Literary Depictions of Indonesians in Australiasmall AustLit logo Antipodes
X