Cirrus@Austlit

'In the introduction to Contemporary Australian Literature, Nicholas Birns recounts how he first came to the field as a young student studying at Columbia in the mid 1980s, his enthusiasm sparked by immersion in the work of Patrick White and Les Murray. From here Birns branched out voraciously, seeking in Australian literature an ideal he thought had been lost to the States: ‘a horizon of hope, a milieu of greater generosity and charity, tolerance and flexibility’. 1 While he quickly realised what any more seasoned or cynical Australian critic would have told him, that this was largely ‘an illusion’, it is safe to say that Birns has not entirely lost his sense of hope when it comes to Australia and its literature (7). Throughout an eclectic research career – he has published on subjects as diverse as Early Modern literature, the history of literary theory, and the SpanishAmerican novel – Australian writing has remained an abiding academic interest, and he has served as the editor of Antipodes since 2001.' (Introduction)