Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature

This book presents thirteen essays that address the numerous ways in which Australian literature is postcolonial and can be read using postcolonial reading strategies. The collection addresses a wide variety of Australian texts produced from the colonial period to the present, including works by Henry Lawson, Miles Franklin, Patrick White, Xavier Herbert, David Malouf, Peter Carey, Rodney Hall, Andrew McGahan, Elizabeth Jolley, Judith Wright, Kate Grenville, Janette Turner Hospital, Melissa Lucashenko, Kim Scott, and Alexis Wright. The chapters focus on works by Indigenous authors and writers of European descent, and examine specifically postcolonial issues, including hybridity, first contact, resistance, appropriation, race relations, language usage, indigeneity, immigration/invasion, land rights and ownership, national identity, marginalization, mapping, naming, mimicry, the role of historical narratives, settler guilt and denial, and anxieties regarding belonging. The essays emphasize the postcolonial nature of Australian literature and utilize postcolonial theory to analyze Australian texts.

This is an important book for all literature and Australasian collections. The collection is primarily aimed at students, teachers and scholars of Australian and postcolonial literature, including undergraduate and postgraduate students, faculty who teach courses in Australian and postcolonial literature, and scholars who conduct research on Australian and postcolonial literature. The book will be useful for courses on both Australian literature and postcolonial literature, especially postcolonial courses that include Australian texts. The collection includes contributions addressing the work of many internationally recognized leading contemporary Australian novelists, providing the collection with broad appeal to students and scholars around the world with an interest in prominent, award-wining authors and works.