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Notes
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Dedication: for my parents; and for Goinxet Bonepart, who knew well in advance how short his golden life would be.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
Australian Popular Fiction and the Moral Drama of East Timor
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Understanding Timor-Leste 2013 : Proceedings of the Timor-Leste Studies Association Conference, 15-16 July 2013 2013; (p. 246-250) 'From the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia in 1975 until the referendum on independence in 1999 and up until the present, East Timor has been a place whose destiny Australian governments have felt they have the right to intervene in. Indeed, this assumed right goes back to the invasion of neutral Portuguese Timor by Australian forces in World War II, thereby condemning thousands of Timorese to their deaths at the hands of Japanese soldiers. Of this initial assumption of Australia’s agency in East Timor there has been surprisingly little creative remediation, although there has been much and moving commentary in nonfiction. The marginality of Portuguese Timor to Australia in the 1940s may be read both in the decision to invade and in subsequent uninterest in interpreting what is one of Australia's closest neighbours. Although the Indonesian invasion and brutal occupation vastly increased the amount of coverage given to the territory, somehow this too was almost never accompanied by the analytical possibilities of creative work. From Tony Maniaty’s anguished representation of the period immediately before the invasion, The Children Must Dance (1987), through Gail Jones’s theoretically reflective short story ‘Other Places’ (1992), Bill Green’s satire on Australian political immorality, Cleaning Up (1993), or Libby Gleeson’s book for children Refuge (1998), to take some of the registers through which the country was dealt with, East Timor was rarely processed in Australia through the protocols of imaginative narrative (on these texts, see Callahan 2010; 2012a; 2012b).' (Introduction) -
History and Shame : East Timor in Australian Fictions
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Interventions : International Journal of Postcolonial Studies , November vol. 12 no. 3 2010; (p. 401-414) This essay examines a series of Australian texts in an attempt to perceive the ways in which East Timor has functioned as a test of the operation of Australian memory and the processing of national shame over the failure of the nation to aid a neighbouring people who had aided Australia at great cost during the Second World War. After introducing the notion of shame and the contrast between official Australian policy and public sentiment over the issue of East Timor from the date of the Indonesian invasion in 1975, a contrast rooted in the nation's sense of itself as being a sponsor of freedom, democracy and the fair go, the essay examines a series of fictional texts dealing with East Timor in some way, and then returns to the concept of shame and its relevance in this context. The texts dealt with include fiction for adults and children: Tony Maniaty's The Children Must Dance (1984), Gail Jones's Other Places (1992), Bill Green's Cleaning Up (1993), Kerry Collison's The Timor Man (1998), Libby Gleeson's Refuge (1998) and Josef Vondra's No-name Bird (2000), along with the Australian-Canadian miniseries Answered by Fire (2006) and the Australian film Balibo (Robert Connolly, 2009). As expected, concerned observers share many features of their reaction to events in East Timor, but inevitably, as they read East Timor they are also reading Australia and its relation to an ethics of conviction that might have dealt more honourably with the invasion and oppression on its doorstep. The analysis draws on the work of Jeffrey Olick, Avishai Margalit and Michael Morgan in its approach to regret, shame and memory. -
Dancing Prose : Looking Beyond Australia
1985
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 74 1985; (p. 16)
— Review of The Children Must Dance 1984 single work novel -
Swinging? No, Opaque
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 30 June 1984; (p. 41)
— Review of The Children Must Dance 1984 single work novel -
Two Questions About Morality
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 26 June vol. 105 no. 5422 1984; (p. 110,112)
— Review of The Morality of Gentlemen 1984 single work novel ; The Children Must Dance 1984 single work novel
-
Two Questions About Morality
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 26 June vol. 105 no. 5422 1984; (p. 110,112)
— Review of The Morality of Gentlemen 1984 single work novel ; The Children Must Dance 1984 single work novel -
Swinging? No, Opaque
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 30 June 1984; (p. 41)
— Review of The Children Must Dance 1984 single work novel -
Dancing Prose : Looking Beyond Australia
1985
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 74 1985; (p. 16)
— Review of The Children Must Dance 1984 single work novel -
History and Shame : East Timor in Australian Fictions
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Interventions : International Journal of Postcolonial Studies , November vol. 12 no. 3 2010; (p. 401-414) This essay examines a series of Australian texts in an attempt to perceive the ways in which East Timor has functioned as a test of the operation of Australian memory and the processing of national shame over the failure of the nation to aid a neighbouring people who had aided Australia at great cost during the Second World War. After introducing the notion of shame and the contrast between official Australian policy and public sentiment over the issue of East Timor from the date of the Indonesian invasion in 1975, a contrast rooted in the nation's sense of itself as being a sponsor of freedom, democracy and the fair go, the essay examines a series of fictional texts dealing with East Timor in some way, and then returns to the concept of shame and its relevance in this context. The texts dealt with include fiction for adults and children: Tony Maniaty's The Children Must Dance (1984), Gail Jones's Other Places (1992), Bill Green's Cleaning Up (1993), Kerry Collison's The Timor Man (1998), Libby Gleeson's Refuge (1998) and Josef Vondra's No-name Bird (2000), along with the Australian-Canadian miniseries Answered by Fire (2006) and the Australian film Balibo (Robert Connolly, 2009). As expected, concerned observers share many features of their reaction to events in East Timor, but inevitably, as they read East Timor they are also reading Australia and its relation to an ethics of conviction that might have dealt more honourably with the invasion and oppression on its doorstep. The analysis draws on the work of Jeffrey Olick, Avishai Margalit and Michael Morgan in its approach to regret, shame and memory. -
Australian Popular Fiction and the Moral Drama of East Timor
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Understanding Timor-Leste 2013 : Proceedings of the Timor-Leste Studies Association Conference, 15-16 July 2013 2013; (p. 246-250) 'From the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia in 1975 until the referendum on independence in 1999 and up until the present, East Timor has been a place whose destiny Australian governments have felt they have the right to intervene in. Indeed, this assumed right goes back to the invasion of neutral Portuguese Timor by Australian forces in World War II, thereby condemning thousands of Timorese to their deaths at the hands of Japanese soldiers. Of this initial assumption of Australia’s agency in East Timor there has been surprisingly little creative remediation, although there has been much and moving commentary in nonfiction. The marginality of Portuguese Timor to Australia in the 1940s may be read both in the decision to invade and in subsequent uninterest in interpreting what is one of Australia's closest neighbours. Although the Indonesian invasion and brutal occupation vastly increased the amount of coverage given to the territory, somehow this too was almost never accompanied by the analytical possibilities of creative work. From Tony Maniaty’s anguished representation of the period immediately before the invasion, The Children Must Dance (1987), through Gail Jones’s theoretically reflective short story ‘Other Places’ (1992), Bill Green’s satire on Australian political immorality, Cleaning Up (1993), or Libby Gleeson’s book for children Refuge (1998), to take some of the registers through which the country was dealt with, East Timor was rarely processed in Australia through the protocols of imaginative narrative (on these texts, see Callahan 2010; 2012a; 2012b).' (Introduction)
Last amended 23 Feb 2006 09:49:14
Settings:
- Pacific Region,
- 1975
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