AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'What would make a soldier betray his country?
'In the battle-smoke and chaos of Gallipoli, a young New Zealand soldier helps a Turkish doctor fighting to save a boy's life. Then a shell bursts nearby; the blast that should have killed them both consigns them instead to the same military hospital.
'Mahmoud is a Sufi. A whirling dervish, he says, of the Mevlevi order. He tells David stories. Of arriving in London with a pocketful of dried apricots. Of Majnun, the man mad for love, and of the saint who flew to paradise on a lion skin. You are God, we are all gods, Mahmoud tells David; and a bond grows between them.
'A bond so strong that David will betray his country for his friend.' (From the publisher's website.)
Notes
-
Dedication:
Dedicated to the memory of
C.A. Daisley - nee Lal Radcliffe
1920-2009 -
Epigraph:
I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my
country and betraying my friend, I hope I would have the guts to
betray my country.E.M. Forster
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
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)
-
The Year's Work in Fiction
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 57 no. 1 2012; (p. 137-152)
— Review of When We Have Wings 2011 single work novel ; Shooting the Fox 2011 selected work short story ; Sarah Thornhill 2011 single work novel ; The Waterboys 2011 single work novel ; Traitor 2010 single work novel ; Inherited 2011 selected work short story ; The Courier's New Bicycle 2011 single work novel ; That Deadman Dance 2010 single work novel ; The Street Sweeper 2011 single work novel ; Thought Crimes 2011 selected work short story ; Black Glass 2010 single work novel ; The Cook 2011 single work novel ; Wild History 1996 single work poetry ; A Common Loss 2011 single work novel -
The Silver Age of Fiction
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 70 no. 4 2011; (p. 110-115)‘In human reckoning, Golden Ages are always already in the past. The Greek poet Hesiod, in Works and Days, posited Five Ages of Mankind: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron (Ovid made do with four). Writing in the Romantic period, Thomas Love Peacock (author of such now almost forgotten novels as Nightmare Abbey, 1818) defined The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) in which their order was Iron, Gold, Silver and Bronze. To the Golden Age, in their archaic greatness, belonged Homer and Aeschylus. The Silver Age, following it, was less original, but nevertheless 'the age of civilised life'. The main issue of Peacock's thesis was the famous response that he elicited from his friend Shelley - Defence of Poetry (1821).’ (Publication abstract)
-
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)
-
The Year's Work in Fiction : 2010-2011
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 56 no. 1 2011; (p. 167-188)
— Review of Equator : A Novel 2010 single work novel ; Rocks in the Belly 2010 single work novel ; Traitor 2010 single work novel ; The Vintage and the Gleaning 2008 single work novel ; The Grand Hotel : A Novel 2010 single work novel ; What Is Left Over, After 2008 single work novel ; The Best Australian Stories 2010 2010 anthology short story extract ; Five Bells 2011 single work novel ; The Mary Smokes Boys 2010 single work novel ; Glissando : A Melodrama 2010 single work novel ; Below the Styx 2010 single work novel ; Indelible Ink 2010 single work novel ; When Colts Ran 2010 single work novel ; Bereft 2010 single work novel ; Time's Long Ruin : A Novel 2008 single work novel ; The Legacy 2010 single work novel ; That Deadman Dance 2010 single work novel
-
A Taboo Worse than Treason
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 7 August 2010; (p. 23)
— Review of Traitor 2010 single work novel -
Untitled
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , August vol. 90 no. 1 2010; (p. 43)
— Review of Traitor 2010 single work novel -
Off the Shelf : Fiction
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 21 August 2010; (p. 26)
— Review of Traitor 2010 single work novel -
Off the Shelf
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 31 August 2010; (p. 6)
— Review of Dead Man's Gold 2010 single work children's fiction ; The Fremantle Doctor 2007 single work novel ; Sustenance 2010 single work novel ; Traitor 2010 single work novel ; The West : Australian Poems 1989-2009 2010 selected work poetry ; Takeshita Demons 2010 single work children's fiction -
Love, Beauty and Loneliness
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , September vol. 5 no. 8 2010; (p. 18)
— Review of Bereft 2010 single work novel ; Traitor 2010 single work novel -
A Pair of Ragged Claws
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 5-6 March 2011; (p. 19) A column canvassing current literary news. -
Undercover
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 4-5 June 2011; (p. 29) A column canvassing current literary news including the launch of Australian Poetry Library website, the launch of Austen Tayshus (2011) and a list of shortlisted entries for the 2011 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, Fiction, including Stephen Daisley. -
First Success at Last as Writer Takes PM's Literary Award
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 9-10 July 2011; (p. 2) -
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)
-
The Silver Age of Fiction
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 70 no. 4 2011; (p. 110-115)‘In human reckoning, Golden Ages are always already in the past. The Greek poet Hesiod, in Works and Days, posited Five Ages of Mankind: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron (Ovid made do with four). Writing in the Romantic period, Thomas Love Peacock (author of such now almost forgotten novels as Nightmare Abbey, 1818) defined The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) in which their order was Iron, Gold, Silver and Bronze. To the Golden Age, in their archaic greatness, belonged Homer and Aeschylus. The Silver Age, following it, was less original, but nevertheless 'the age of civilised life'. The main issue of Peacock's thesis was the famous response that he elicited from his friend Shelley - Defence of Poetry (1821).’ (Publication abstract)
Awards
- 2011 winner Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Fiction
- 2011 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — UTS Award for New Writing
- 2011 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
- 2011 shortlisted South East Asia and South Pacific Region — Best First Book
- 2010 shortlisted Western Australian Premier's Book Awards — Fiction
-
cNew Zealand,cPacific Region,
-
Gallipoli,
cTurkey,cMiddle East, Asia,