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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'In 1915 a troopship of Light Horsemen sails from Fremantle for the Great War. Two women farewell their men: Elizabeth, with her background of careless wealth, and Bonnie, who is marked by the anxieties of poverty. Neither can predict how the effects of the most brutal fighting at Gallipoli will devastate their lives in the long aftermath of the war.
'The Wing of Night is a novel about the strength and failure of faith and memory, about returned soldiers who become exiles in their own country, about how people may become the very opposite of what they imagined themselves to be. Brenda Walker writes with a terrible grandeur of the grime and drudge of the battlefield, and of how neither men nor women can be consoled for the wreckage caused by a foreign war.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
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Dedication: For Tom.
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Epigraph: 'My own taste has always been for unwritten history and my present business is with the reverse of the picture.' Henry James.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille, sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Life After Gallipoli
single work
review
— Review of The Wing of Night 2005 single work novel -
Ruins or Foundations : Great War Literature in the Australian Curriculum
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 1 2012; 'The Great War has been represented in Australian curricula since 1914, in texts with tones ranging from bellicose patriotism to idealistic pacifism. Australian curricula have included war literature as one way of transmitting cultural values, values that continue to evolve as successive generations relate differently to war and peace. Changes in ethical perspectives and popular feeling have guided text selection and pedagogy, so that texts which were once accepted as foundational to Australian society seem, at later times, to document civilisation's ruin.
In recent years, overseas texts have been preferred above Australian examples as mediators of the Great War, an event still held by many to be of essential importance to Australia. This paper first considers arguments for including Great War texts on the national curriculum, exploring what war literature can, and cannot, be expected to bring to the program. Interrogating the purpose/s of war literature in the curriculum and the ways in which the texts may be used to meet such expectations, the paper then discusses styles of war texts and investigates whether there is a case for including more texts by Australian authors.' (Author's abstract)
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A Transnational Gallipoli?
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , November no. 51 2011; 'Roger Hillman's essay adds a transnational dimension to representations of an historical event that has become the preeminent site of national memorialisation. In A Transnational Gallipoli?, Hillman contrasts the masculinist heroics and celebratory nationalism of Peter Weir's iconic film, Gallipoli, and Roger McDonald's 1915, with more recent novels and films produced outside Australia's borders that provide alternative forms of cultural memory. Louis de Bernières' Birds Without Wings and Tolga Örnek's documentary film Gallipoli: The Front Line Experience are significant as texts that 'situate the Gallipoli legend in a transnational rather than a national framework, while providing a fuller understanding of how cultural memory works in relation to the national imaginary'.' (Source: Editor's introduction)
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Innovation Meets Tradition in Brenda Walker's The Wing of Night
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 56 no. 1 2011; (p. 118-134) -
Building on Gendered Ground: Space and National Identity in Brenda Walker’s The Wing of Night
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Journal of Australian Writers and Writing , May no. 1 2010; (p. 4-13)'On Anzac Day 2005 John Howard proclaimed that Anzac soldiers had 'bequeathed Australia a lasting sense of national identity'. Howard's speeches and other efforts to revitalise Anzac Day have generated questions about his vision of the Australian nation...
Brenda Walker's award winning fourth novel The Wing of Night entered this debate about the control and uses of the Anzac image in 2005, the year that marked the 90th anniversary of the Anzac landing at Gallipoli. By honouring and remembering a variety of men and women that Howard's version of the Anzac legend ignores, Walker challenges a limited, gendered image of the nation.' (p. 1)
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Women Awaiting
2005
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 10-11 September 2005; (p. 10-11)
— Review of The Wing of Night 2005 single work novel -
Suffer the Women
2005
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 18 September 2005; (p. 23)
— Review of The Wing of Night 2005 single work novel -
Women and War
2005
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 17 September 2005; (p. 10)
— Review of The Wing of Night 2005 single work novel -
When the Broken Men Returned
2005
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 24-25 September 2005; (p. 21)
— Review of The Wing of Night 2005 single work novel -
Life After Gallipoli
single work
review
— Review of The Wing of Night 2005 single work novel -
War's Empty Spaces
2005
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 27 August 2005; (p. 3) -
Casualties of Love and War
2005
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 10 September 2005; (p. 11) -
Kibble Award
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 13 May 2006; (p. 18) -
Feather in the Cap for Perth Novelist
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 11 May 2006; (p. 18) -
Spoils of War for Novelist
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: The Australian , 11 May 2006; (p. 3)
Awards
- 2007 winner Asher Literary Award
- 2006 winner Kibble Literary Awards — Nita Kibble Literary Award
- 2006 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
- 2006 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
- 2006 co-winner 'The Nib': CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature — The Alex Buzo Shortlist Prize One of six winners.
- Western Australia,
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Gallipoli,
cTurkey,cMiddle East, Asia,