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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Notes
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Dedication: In memory of Arkie Whiteley
Contents
- Epilogue, single work prose travel
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Ethics of Representation and Self-reflexivity : Nicolas Rothwell’s Narrative Essays
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 20 no. 2 2020;'While many contemporary Australian writers pitch their narratives on the coastal fringes, where most Australians reside, Nicolas Rothwell returns obsessively to the interior where one senses a sense of unfinished business. The spatial instabilities that resulted from the settler colonial project act as a catalyst for unsettling prior forms of knowledge and belief. Rothwell’s works feature real-and-imagined characters caught between fiction and non-fiction, the lies in the land and the lie of the land. His narratives create a form of generic disorientation that has a political, social and epistemological purpose. Central to Rothwell’s literary project is the reminder that spatial representations influence spatial practices. The author advocates for a break from the novelistic tradition; the country has seen enough literary and legal fictions that had catastrophic consequences for the native population and the environment.
'I argue that Rothwell’s spatial and literary renegotiations culminate in the formation of a new literary genre, the narrative essay. The author decolonises place, space and literary forms to articulate ethical models of non-belonging. Rothwell offers a transformative sublime aesthetics that I analyse as an expression of Bill Ashcroft’s ‘horizonal sublime’ and Christopher Hitt’s ‘ecological sublime’. I compare Rothwell’s ethics of representation, characterised by a self-reflexive prose, narrative instability and narrative regression, to that of Anglo-German author W.G. Sebald, who uses similar techniques in his evocation of a ruined Europe. Rothwell not only presents man’s propensity for a ‘Natural History of Destruction’, he is also intent on identifying the mechanisms at work in building the future.' (Publication abstract)
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Homer in the Outback
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Brick , Summer no. 85 2010; (p. 99-104) -
Another Country [Book Review]
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: Journal of Northern Territory History , no. 19 2008; (p. 90-93)
— Review of Another Country 2007 selected work prose -
Books : Peter Pierce
2007-2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 18 December - 8 January vol. 125 no. 6600 2007-2008; (p. 145) Short impressions of books read by the author. -
Westerly Non-Fiction Review 2006-2007
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , November vol. 52 no. 2007; (p. 160-171)
— Review of 'Flashing Eyes and Floating Hair' : A Reading of Gwen Harwood's Pseudonymous Poetry 2006 single work criticism ; The Higher Self in Christopher Brennan's 'Poems' : Esotericism, Romanticism, Symbolism 2006 single work criticism ; Prince of the Church : Patrick Francis Moran, 1830-1911 2007 single work biography ; Homing In : Essays on Australian Literature and Selfhood 2006 selected work criticism essay autobiography ; Mind the Country : Tim Winton's Fiction 2006 single work criticism ; My Father's Compass : A Memoir 2007 single work autobiography ; Darby : One Hundred Years of Life in a Changing Culture 2006 single work life story ; Prisoners of the Japanese : Literary Imagination and the Prisoner-of-War Experience 2006 single work criticism ; Translating Lives : Living with Two Languages and Cultures 2007 anthology autobiography ; The Sea Coast of Bohemia : Literary Life in Sydney's Roaring Twenties 1992 single work criticism ; The Forgotten Children : Fairbridge Farm School and Its Betrayal of Australia's Child Migrants 2007 single work autobiography ; Well Done, Those Men : Memoirs of a Vietnam Veteran 2005 single work autobiography ; David Malouf 2007 single work criticism ; A Story To Tell 2006 single work autobiography ; The Best Australian Essays 2006 2006 anthology essay ; Sunrise West 2007 single work autobiography ; A Revealed Life : Australian Writers and Their Journeys in Memoir 2007 anthology autobiography ; Another Country 2007 selected work prose ; The Melancholy Dane : (A Portrait of the Poet as a Young Man) 2006 single work autobiography
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Art of Native Insight
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 17-18 February 2007; (p. 11)
— Review of Another Country 2007 selected work prose -
The Culture at Our Land's Heart
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 10 February 2007; (p. 25)
— Review of Another Country 2007 selected work prose -
Gazing into Shadows
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 10 February 2007; (p. 13)
— Review of Another Country 2007 selected work prose -
A Realist's Walk through an Indigenous Spirit World
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 3-4 February 2007; (p. 32)
— Review of Another Country 2007 selected work prose -
Books Non-Fiction
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 3 - 4 March 2007; (p. 28)
— Review of Another Country 2007 selected work prose -
Voices From a Land Apart
2007
single work
column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 24 February 2007; (p. 13) -
Books : Peter Pierce
2007-2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 18 December - 8 January vol. 125 no. 6600 2007-2008; (p. 145) Short impressions of books read by the author. -
Homer in the Outback
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Brick , Summer no. 85 2010; (p. 99-104) -
Ethics of Representation and Self-reflexivity : Nicolas Rothwell’s Narrative Essays
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 20 no. 2 2020;'While many contemporary Australian writers pitch their narratives on the coastal fringes, where most Australians reside, Nicolas Rothwell returns obsessively to the interior where one senses a sense of unfinished business. The spatial instabilities that resulted from the settler colonial project act as a catalyst for unsettling prior forms of knowledge and belief. Rothwell’s works feature real-and-imagined characters caught between fiction and non-fiction, the lies in the land and the lie of the land. His narratives create a form of generic disorientation that has a political, social and epistemological purpose. Central to Rothwell’s literary project is the reminder that spatial representations influence spatial practices. The author advocates for a break from the novelistic tradition; the country has seen enough literary and legal fictions that had catastrophic consequences for the native population and the environment.
'I argue that Rothwell’s spatial and literary renegotiations culminate in the formation of a new literary genre, the narrative essay. The author decolonises place, space and literary forms to articulate ethical models of non-belonging. Rothwell offers a transformative sublime aesthetics that I analyse as an expression of Bill Ashcroft’s ‘horizonal sublime’ and Christopher Hitt’s ‘ecological sublime’. I compare Rothwell’s ethics of representation, characterised by a self-reflexive prose, narrative instability and narrative regression, to that of Anglo-German author W.G. Sebald, who uses similar techniques in his evocation of a ruined Europe. Rothwell not only presents man’s propensity for a ‘Natural History of Destruction’, he is also intent on identifying the mechanisms at work in building the future.' (Publication abstract)
Awards
- 2008 shortlisted Colin Roderick Award
- 2008 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
- Darwin area, Northern Territory,
- Northern Territory,
- North Western Australia, Western Australia,