Australia in Three Books single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 Australia in Three Books
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I read Elizabeth Jolley's 'The Well' in the first year of my postgraduate study after recognising, in vague, dispiriting shame, that I was ignorant of most writing by Australian women. I'd fed myself on a steady diet of British and North American writers in the heady days of my first years at university, and while I would have earnestly regarded myself as widely read, a feminist and a lover of literature, I had, in my zealous pursuit of 'culture', entirely neglected my own countrywomen. Feeling embarrassed, I picked up 'The Well' out of dry, almost punitive duty to educate myself about my antipodean literary heritage.' (Publication abstract)

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    y separately published work icon Meanjin Telling Someone Else's Story vol. 75 no. 4 Summer 2016 10855789 2016 periodical issue

    'Stories can have a determining power, the authority of the assumed and accepted narrative.

    'We all have our own of course, and perhaps the capacity to imagine the stories of hypothetical others. In everyday life that might pass for empathy; in literature it can carry an edge of privilege and controversy. And in fact? In non-fiction?

    'In this edition, a timely exploration framed by that great Australian woman of letters Alexis Wright, a long musing on the often vexed intersections between our first peoples and the narrative that explains and explores the Indigenous position in modern Australia. Whose stories are these to tell? Who owns this continuing tale?' (Editorial introduction)

    2016
    pg. 23-25
Last amended 25 Feb 2021 06:59:37
23-25 Australia in Three Bookssmall AustLit logo Meanjin
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