Cirrus@Austlit

'This issue of Coolabah compiles a sample of results of research carried out by the members of the group POCRIF: “Postcolonial Crime Fiction: a global window into social realities”. The group was founded in 2013 under the aegis of the Centre of Australian Studies at the University of Barcelona. Although CEA focuses much of its activity on the lively exchange of ideas, scholars and students between Catalonia and its antipodes, it does not constrict its activities to the Pacific area. Rather, it has a global postcolonial vocation, and is thus the perfect matrix for a research group with such eclectic and diverse interests as POCRIF. All its members belong to CEA, and their research is part of the wider academic and investigative work carried out therein. Coolabah is one of the journals published by the Centre itself, and the works presented in this issue, except for one invited contribution, are the result of a Ministerio de Economía y Competividad financed research project on Postcolonial Crime Fiction (FFI2013-45101-P). (Introduction)

'Identity politics is fraught with difficulties. Of few places is this truer than in Australia when it comes to the representation of Aboriginality. On the one hand the absence or invisibility of Aboriginality in Australian life and culture maybe interpreted as a deliberate exclusion of a people whose presence is uncomfortable or inconvenient for many Australians of immigrant origin. Equally, the representation of Aboriginality by non-Aboriginals may be seen as an appropriation of identity, an inexcusable commercial exploitation or an act of neocolonialism. Best-selling and prize-winning South African-born author Peter Temple appears to be very much aware of these pitfalls. In his crime novels, written between 1996 and 2009, he has obviously made the decision to grasp the nettle and attempt to represent Aboriginality in a way that would be as acceptable as possible. This paper traces the evolution of Temple's representation of Aboriginality through the three major Aboriginal characters present in his novels: Cameron Delray (Bad Debts, 1996; Black Tide, 1999; Dead Point, 2000; and White Dog, 2003), Ned Lowey (An Iron Rose, 1998) and Detective Sergeant Paul Dove (The Broken Shore, 2005 and Truth, 2009).' (Publication abstract)

'This paper locates the postcolonial crime novel as a space for disenfranchised groups to write back to the marginalisation inherent in the process of colonisation, and explores the example of Australia. From its inception in the mid-19th century, Australian crime fiction reflected upon the challenging harshness and otherness of the Australian experience for the free and convict settler, expelled from the metropole. It created a series of popular subgenres derived from the convict narrative proper, while more ‘standard’ modes of crime fiction, popularised in and through British and American crime fiction, were late to develop. Whereas Australian crime fiction has given expression to the white experience of the continent in manifold ways, up until recently it made no room for Indigenous voices – with the exception of the classic Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte series written by the prolific Arthur Upfield in the first half of the 20th century. For the longest time, this absence reflected the dispossession, dispersal and disenfranchisement of the colonised Indigenous peoples at large; there were neither Aboriginal voices nor Aboriginal authors, which made the textual space of the Australian crime novel a discursive terra nullius. This paper will look at the only Indigenous-Australian author to date with a substantial body of work in crime fiction, Philip McLaren, and elucidate how his four crime novels break new ground in Australian crime fiction by embedding themselves within a political framework of Aboriginal resilience and resistance to neo/colonialism. Written as of the 1990s, McLaren’s oeuvre is eclectic in that it does not respond to traditional formats of Australian crime fiction, shifts between generic subtypes and makes incursions into other genres. The paper concludes that McLaren’s oeuvre has not been conceived of as the work of a crime writer per se, but rather that its form and content are deeply informed by the racist violence and oppression that still affects Indigenous-Australian society today, the expression of which the crime novel is particularly well geared to.' (Publication abstract)

'This article centres on the first part of James Cameron’s 1878 biography of Adelaida de la Thoreza, entitled Adelaide de la Thoreza: A Chequered Career, in order to briefly discuss the problematics of biography as a literary genre, but in particular to reveal what appears to be a reconstruction of identity in the figure of Adelaide. Although the discussion will leave many questions unanswered due to the lack of documentary evidence, this very lack of evidence will allow for a series of “reasonable doubts” to cast their shadow over the veracity of Cameron’s text.' (Publication abstract)

'Kerry Greenwood’s The Phryne Fisher Mystery Collection is formed by 19 novels set in 1928-1929 Australia and its main character is the Hon. Phryne Fisher, a young beautiful intelligent rich woman who works as a private detective. The seventh novel of this collection is Ruddy Gore (1995), which presents one of the most relevant characters in the series: Lin, and which includes a turning-point in the protagonist’s life.This article analyses the depiction of Miss Fisher as a postcolonial detective in the late 1920s Melbourne, and focuses on the constructs of gender and ethnicity in the creation of Miss Fisher and of Lin. This novel was adapted as a TV episode, aired by the Australia Broadcasting Corporation in 2012. This article also explores the way Phryne is depicted in the episode and how she interacts with some of the characters. The article aims to find out whether the adaptation creates a female detective as author Kerry Greenwood had envisioned, and whether this character breaks stereotypes or follows them.' (Publication abstract)