AustLit
Texts
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Benang : From the Heart
Fremantle
:
Fremantle Press
,
1999
Z135862
1999
single work
novel
(taught in 31 units)
'Oceanic in its rhythms and understanding, brilliant in its use of language and image, moving in its largeness of spirit, compelling in its narrative scope and style, Benang is a novel of celebration and lament, of beginning and return, of obliteration and recovery, of silencing and of powerful utterance. Both tentative and daring, it speaks to the present and a possible future through stories, dreams, rhythms, songs, images and documents mobilised from the incompletely acknowledged and still dynamic past.' (Publisher's website)
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Home
St Lucia
:
University of Queensland Press
,
2004
Z1113719
2004
single work
novel
(taught in 10 units)
'A story of homecoming, this absorbing novel opens with a young, city-based lawyer setting out on her first visit to ancestral country. Candice arrives at "the place where the rivers meet", the camp of the Eualeyai where in 1918 her grandmother Garibooli was abducted. As Garibooli takes up the story of Candice's Aboriginal family, the twentieth century falls away.
Garibooli, renamed Elizabeth, is sent to work as a housemaid, but marriage soon offers escape from the terror of the master's night-time visits. Her displacement carries into the lives of her seven children - their stories witness to the impact of orphanage life and the consequences of having a dark skin in post-war Australia. Vividly rekindled, the lives of her family point the direction home for Candice.
Home is a ... novel from an author who understands both the capacity of language to suppress and the restorative potency of stories that bridge past and present.' (Source: Publisher's blurb)
Description
This subject looks at the development of Black Australian writing and the way in which Black Australians have used writing to reflect their lives and consciousness. There will be an overview of Indigenous Australian literature in relation to social, historical and political contexts. Fiction, non-fiction, drama, poetry and popular critically acclaimed feature films will be explored through various models of contemporary literary criticism and students will apply conventions from these, as well as their own perspectives in the appreciation and analysis of selected texts. On completion of this subject students should understand the impact and place of Black Australian writing in Australia today. This subject will be offered through on-line activities and therefore requires students to have access to the World Wide Web.
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