Cirrus@Austlit

'The contested histories of book publishing in Australia reflect colonisation of the local industry by Western publishing powers and non-publishing media monopolies. Feminist critiques of book culture are framed around the social relations in which the book is produced and the cultural space of its production. Feminism at work in publishing is a different kind of engagement with texts and the politics of cultural production, where the agency of feminism exposes and contests power relations through the development of risky publishing lists. Feminist book publishing, a corollary of an organised international political movement, coincided with the growth of 'mainstream' book publishing in Australia. Until the 1970s Australian literature was largely representative of dominant masculinist narratives. ’(Introduction 263)