AustLit logo

AustLit

y separately published work icon Distant Land single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1964... 1964 Distant Land
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.

Latest Issues

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

This novel of present day migrant life centres on Joshua Kuperschmidt who arrives with his wife Shoshanah, from Poland, in 1925. He has given up his family and his traditional European ties to escape war and persecution, in the hope of a better life.

It is the moving story of a Jewish couple who have adapted themselves to a strange new environment in a distant land - a country where even the small Jewish community differs markedly from that they have known. Material success is the reward for Shoshanah's unrelenting ambition; but Joshua is never sure whether his own ambitions in this new society are ever fulfilled. (Publisher's blurb).

Contents

* Contents derived from the Rushcutters Bay, Sydney Eastern Harbourside, Sydney Eastern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,:Halstead Press , 2001 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Distant Land : Afterword, Hsu-Ming Teo , single work criticism (p. 189-192)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Other Formats

  • Also braille. Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

New Places, Old Memories Elisa Morera de la Vall , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antípodas , no. 15 2004; (p. 77-83)
New Issues, Old Issues : The Australian Tradition Revisited John McLaren , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 170 2003; (p. 49-56)

McLaren discusses a number of Australian novels (all recently re-issued) which have been central to developing the way in which Australians and foreigners think about white society in this continent. He distinguishes several trends and traditions in describing and characterising Australia's social and political system. Whereas Clarke and Richardson present Australia as a prison, Palmer and Waten present it as a land offering the promise of freedom. Furphy, on the other hand, is seen as a writer 'who shows us a country seeming to offer plentitude but finally withholding its promise' (54).

McLaren concludes that the 'past expressed in these fictions variously produced values of solidarity, egalitarianism, harmony with the land, but their values remain circumscribed by fear of the powerless and the dispossessed, by the arrogance of the powerful, and by distrust of the outsider. Our future will be secure only as we accept continuity with the past, enter into dialogue with the differences of the present, and accept a common responsibility towards the land that supports us' (56).

Reissued Realism Delys Bird , 2002-2003 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January no. 247 2002-2003; (p. 61-62)

— Review of Sugar Heaven Jean Devanny , 1936 single work novel ; Distant Land Judah Waten , 1964 single work novel ; The Passage Vance Palmer , 1930 single work novel ; Jonah Louis Stone , 1911 single work novel
Distant Land : Afterword Hsu-Ming Teo , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Distant Land 2001; (p. 189-192)
y separately published work icon A Career in Writing : Judah Waten and the Cultural Politics of a Literary Career David Carter , Toowoomba : Association for the Study of Australian Literature , 1997 Z159609 1997 single work criticism
Reissued Realism Delys Bird , 2002-2003 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January no. 247 2002-2003; (p. 61-62)

— Review of Sugar Heaven Jean Devanny , 1936 single work novel ; Distant Land Judah Waten , 1964 single work novel ; The Passage Vance Palmer , 1930 single work novel ; Jonah Louis Stone , 1911 single work novel
Distant Land Vera Deacon , 1965 single work review
— Appears in: The Realist , Autumn no. 18 1965; (p. 19)

— Review of Distant Land Judah Waten , 1964 single work novel
Untitled Kylie Tennant , 1964 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October vol. 3 no. 12 1964; (p. 249)

— Review of Distant Land Judah Waten , 1964 single work novel
Untitled Keith Thomas , 1964 single work review
— Appears in: Nation , 14 November 1964; (p. 22)

— Review of Distant Land Judah Waten , 1964 single work novel
Jewish Migrant Michael Wilding , 1964 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 24 October vol. 86 no. 4418 1964; (p. 54-55)

— Review of Distant Land Judah Waten , 1964 single work novel
New Issues, Old Issues : The Australian Tradition Revisited John McLaren , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 170 2003; (p. 49-56)

McLaren discusses a number of Australian novels (all recently re-issued) which have been central to developing the way in which Australians and foreigners think about white society in this continent. He distinguishes several trends and traditions in describing and characterising Australia's social and political system. Whereas Clarke and Richardson present Australia as a prison, Palmer and Waten present it as a land offering the promise of freedom. Furphy, on the other hand, is seen as a writer 'who shows us a country seeming to offer plentitude but finally withholding its promise' (54).

McLaren concludes that the 'past expressed in these fictions variously produced values of solidarity, egalitarianism, harmony with the land, but their values remain circumscribed by fear of the powerless and the dispossessed, by the arrogance of the powerful, and by distrust of the outsider. Our future will be secure only as we accept continuity with the past, enter into dialogue with the differences of the present, and accept a common responsibility towards the land that supports us' (56).

New Places, Old Memories Elisa Morera de la Vall , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antípodas , no. 15 2004; (p. 77-83)
y separately published work icon A Career in Writing : Judah Waten and the Cultural Politics of a Literary Career David Carter , Toowoomba : Association for the Study of Australian Literature , 1997 Z159609 1997 single work criticism
y separately published work icon Migrant Contribution to the Literature of Australia : Judah Waten and the Old Tradition in the New World Rosanna Rosini , Calcutta : Writers Workshop , 1987 Z437434 1987 single work criticism biography
Distant Land : Afterword Hsu-Ming Teo , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Distant Land 2001; (p. 189-192)
Last amended 6 Feb 2008 13:53:30
X