AustLit

This article argues that representations of repulsion and disgust regarding food in recent Singaporean and Malaysian fiction is reflective of 'the growing unease caused by the commercial and ideological exploitation of consumable multiculturalism' (32). The author reads the work of Hsu-Ming Teo, as well as that of Vyvyanne Loh and Josephine Chia to demonstrate how 'ironic displays of repulsive food' may 'counter Orientalization' (45).

The author aims to demonstrate 'how Elizabeth Costello undermines the conventions of mimetic referentiality and blends narrative and essay' (80), offering a Barthean 'writerly text,' 'allowing for an interpretive pluralism that elevates the reader to the rank of co-writer' (81).

The author argues that Malouf in Harland's Half Acre deploys representations of white indigeneity that perpetuate colonial constructs of Aboriginality and fail to acknowledge the distance between Indigenous sovereignty and non-indigenous discourses of sovereignty (113).

The author argues that Flanagan's Death of a River Guide need not be read as 'appropriation of Aboriginal culture and spirituality on the part of a white settler writer living in Australia.'