Description
Book SynopsisAustralian Fiction as Archival Salvage examines key developments in the field of the Australian postcolonial historical novel from 1989 to the present. In parallel with this analysis, A. Frances Johnson undertakes a unique study of in-kind creativity, reflecting on how her own nascent historical fiction has been critically and imaginatively shaped and inspired by seminal experiments in the genre – by writers as diverse as Kate Grenville, Mudrooroo, Kim Scott, Peter Carey, Richard Flanagan, and Rohan Wilson. Mapping the postcolonial novel against the impact of postcolonial cultural theory and Australian writers’ intermittent embrace of literary postmodernism, this survey is also read against the post-millenial ‘history’ and ‘culture wars’ which saw politicizations of national debates around history and fierce contestation over the ways stories of Australian pasts have been written.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements A Note on Style Introduction: Making and Unmaking the Postcolonial Historical Novel 1 Genre Memory: Australian Historical Novels in Context Postcolonial Provocations: Old and New Approaches to Genre Intercultural Representation: Intergeneric Strategies in Eugene’s Falls and Beyond 2 Intertextuality and the Postcolonial Novel of History Recent Explorations of Intertextuality and Heteroglossia: The Influence of Benang and That Deadman Dance Theories of Intertextuality and the Postcolonial Context Intertextuality and Intercultural Subjectivity: Australian Contexts 3 Elision and Engagement: Writing Indigeneity in Post-Bicentennial Historical Novels New Speech Genres: Portrayals of Indigeneity in White Writing 1989–2000 Out of the Impasse? Re-thinking Intercultural Engagement and Subject-Positions 4 Postmodern Rats in the Ranks: The Novelist and the Historian as Raiders of the Colonial Archive The Trouble with History: Scaling the Archive Ideology and Politics: A Background to the History Wars The Novelist in the Archive: Kate Grenville’s The Secret River Trilogy and Kim Scott’s Benang and That Deadman Dance White-Gloved Border Police: Archival Custody and the Protection of History Whose Treasure? Clendinnen’s Reef and the Wreck of the Postcolonial Novel 5 Speaking in Tongues: The Novelist as Historiographic Fool Historiographic Metafiction as Postmodern, Postcolonial Intervention Metafictional Conceits in Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang and Robert Drewe’s Our Sunshine Metafictional Tactics in Eugene’s Falls Focalization and Radical Polyphony in Recent Postcolonial Historical Novels Learning from Scott and Carey: Polyphony, Translation, and Mistranslation in the Postcolonial Novel 6 Writing South of South: Extinction Discourse in Novelizations of Tasmanian Colonial Pasts Roving History: Intercultural Representation in the Novels of Rohan Wilson Eden Unsettled: Parody and Post-Gothicism in Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish: History and Story in the Postmodern Acquarium Conclusion: Beyond the Dry Dock Appendix 1: Postcolonial/Post-Colonial Debates in Context Appendix 2: Lessons in ‘The Lost Garden’: A First-Contact Tasmanian Historical Novel in Progress Works Cited Index
