AustLit

'The story is based on the true story of the 1919 England-to-Australia contest to celebrate who could be the first to make the long-distance flight. The flight was significant in finding use for aircraft technology for activities outside of war efforts, as well as pushing the limits of aircraft design for the time. The main character, Wally, is one of the crew who makes this journey. Much of Wally's story seems to occur because of happenstance. At the outset of the story, he finds the love of his life, Helena, after witnessing the egging of her house during a walk. He meets Helena and her family after offering to help clean up the mess. After Wally falls in love with Helena and impulsively asks her to marry him, his plans are altered after being persuaded to enlist in the war efforts and sent abroad. His acumen with mechanics translates well to working on the latest technology of aircraft during the war, a skill needed after the war as well. Much as when he is persuaded to enlist in the war, he becomes caught up in his friends' enthusiasm and chooses to enter a contest to fly with them from England to Australia.' (Introduction)

'The Fiction of Tim Winton provides a critical study of the work of one of Australia's most celebrated authors. The book is structured in chapters, eight in total, that seek to interrogate the current significance of Winton's work and its likely influence for the future. In the introduction, McCredden suggests that as an author Tim Winton remains difficult to define. His stories about family life, subjectivity, the individual bond to landscape, and the egalitarian society are critically revisited to examine the career of an author who places himself on the margins of the literary canon. Two chapters (chapters 6 and 8) in particular analyze the impact of the editing and the marketing of stories with specific figures to situate Winton as a global and national author. These two chapters, which may at first appear to merely provide marketing details, are essential and nicely conducted, since McCredden manages to keep her focus on the act of writing. She does not, in fact, simply insert charts and figures; she connects them to the essence of Winton's writing, and this is a tour de force. The theoretical reference to Roland Barthes's use of semiology is all the more significant in that there is a questioning of Winton's use of language and his authorial intent. While his public involvement on social, political, and cultural issues is mentioned, the book does not expand on the slight rapport that some readers may see between literature and politics.'  (Introduction)

'This memoir begins in a somewhat shriveled corner of the world—Kolkata and a little boy, young Chris Raja, who is learning the meaning of his surname. The reason Rajatnaram has been shortened to Raja is simple enough. It was a hard name for the people at the convent to pronounce, and so Chris's grandfather changed it to make it easier on them. It is not Chris's parents who are telling the seven-year-old boy the origins of his surname. Rather, an auntie, who is in the middle of spilling a bunch of other family secrets, feels like telling this one as well. Chris's father only comes out in the middle of the scene, to interrupt: "What are you saying?" he asked. "Some things are best left alone" (5).'  (Introduction)

'Authors of fiction draw on their lives and relationships to mimic the look, touch, and feel of real human experience—so much so that a person who has lived in proximity to an author, maybe as a lover or friend or child, can sometimes find an unexpected and embarrassing audit of their own faults, abilities, and shortcomings in the author's prose. It is an uncomfortable and seldomdiscussed consequence of creating art that so closely parallels lived reality: that real people tend to recognize themselves in it. In many ways, this premise is what propels the plot of Thomas Keneally's 2020 book The Dickens Boy , a work of historical fiction that reimagines the youngest son of the literary icon Charles Dickens and his adventures through the Australian Outback.' (Introduction)

'In early February 2011, I read that North Queensland was being hit by Cyclone Yasi, a Category 5 storm. When I got online, the first story I encountered was a report of the devastation suffered by Mission Beach, a town I had visited several times when researching E. J. Banfield's Dunk Island books. I was reminded of those visits and that storm in Chrystopher Spicer's book. Although the subtitle speaks of Australian literature generally, it is mostly a book about North Queensland writing.' (Introduction)