AustLit

'M. L. Skinner (1876–1955), the almost anonymous Australian nurse and midwife who was serving at the Hindu Rao hospital in New Delhi when the First World War broke out, had her only brush with fame as writer in Antipodean literary circles when she accomplished a collaboration with D. H. Lawrence in the novel The Boy in the Bush (1924). In this chapter, Sengupta explores Skinner’s alternative models of Australianness moored in intersections, cross-fertilizations, travel and translations, as explored in her novels Tucker Sees India (1937) and W. X. Corporal Smith (1941). Exile from successive homes and anchors had shaped Skinner’s margins and texts. She transforms exile into a transformative exi(s)tential category that engages with plural possibilities of Australianness and exposes black holes in imagining the nation in Australian Literature.'

Source: Abstract.

'Geographical isolation and innate curiosity have long motivated Australians to leave their shores and travel far and wide to broaden their horizons and experience cultural and social differences with countries established long before explorers began to map Australia. As well as responding to the touristic impulse, there is also the patriotic one of planting Australia’s name abroad, particularly in times of war. This essay looks at the writings of some of the travellers who converged on India, long before the hippy trail of the 1970s, through a historical lens, and compares these writings with a sample of those written later in the 20th century and the shifts in their perceptions and social and cultural awareness which evolved in modern times. India, which had long been purely a brief stopover on the P&O route for Australians, became a desirable place in its own right in the late 20th century, a mysterious subcontinent that signified high adventure and the exoticism of the other.' (Introduction)