Cirrus@Austlit

'Almost 5,000 Italians were interned in Australia during World War II, a high proportion of them Queensland residents. Internment was a pivotal experience for the Italian community, both locally and nationally, complicating Italian Australians’ sense of belonging to their adopted country. Through an examination of two migrant autobiographical narratives of internment, Osvaldo Bonutto's A Migrant's Story and Peter Dalseno's Sugar, Tears and Eyeties, this article explores the impact of internment on the experience and articulation of cultural and civic belonging to Australian society. It finds that internment was a ‘trial’ or ‘transitional’ phase for these internees’ personal and civic identities, and that the articulation of these identities and sense of belonging is historically contingent, influenced by the shift from assimilation to multiculturalism in settlement ideology, as well as Italian Australians’ changing place in Australian society throughout the twentieth century.' (Publication abstract)

'The clustering of book culture in rural locales around the world is a growing phenomenon. Creative and cultural activity in these bookish communities enhances social capital, and their book-based economies contribute to sustainability. Maleny, in South-East Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland, has long been recognised as a centre for books, readers and writers. It is the home of two writers’ festivals, Outspoken and Maleny Celebration of Books. The community attracts city dwellers, and those who like to escape to the Blackall Ranges for relaxation, as well as people who choose to live a ‘slow’ life in the area. Onyx (2005) identified high levels of social capital. In this article, I consider the potential of Maleny to position itself as a ‘book town’. However, my findings confirm that, despite the community's reputation as a place of cultural consumption, prosperity is a hindrance to book town development.'  (Publication abstract)

'Madge Roe was a Brisbane-based illustrator who specialised in Australian flora and fauna. She captured the everyday in sketches and line illustrations to share with family and friends, and donated her time and talents to public causes. Although an avid supporter of and participant in Brisbane cultural groups, she was not a leading artist. Vida Lahey, however, was highly respected nationally and developing an international reputation. Both artists were embedded in family networks that sustained and promoted their well-being; both engaged with Brisbane culture, though in very different ways. In this paper, I argue for thinking holistically about culture and place as they are engaged by meaning-making ‘subjects’. Through Lahey's painting, Memoriam to Madge Roe, Roe's death notice and family sources, I focus on the articulation by subjects of geo-cultural meanings. By using this term, I indicate that meaning making is closely tied to place, to transitions between places and to the family as a form of subject ‘placement’.'  (Publication abstract)

'Andrew McGahan is one of Queensland's most successful novelists. Over the past 23 years, he has published six adult novels and three novels in his Ship Kings series for young adults. McGahan's debut novel, Praise(1992), won the Vogel National Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, Last Drinks (2000) won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing, and The White Earth went on to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award, The Age Book of the Year Award and the Courier-Mail Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. In 2009, Wonders of a Godless World earned McGahan the Best Science Fiction Novel in the Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction. McGahan's unashamedly open critiques of Australian, and specifically Queensland, society have imbued his works with a sense of place and space that is a unique trait of his writing. In this interview, McGahan allows us a brief visit into the mind of one of Australia's pre-eminent contemporary authors, shedding light on the ‘what ifs’ and ‘idle daydreaming’ that have pushed his ideas from periphery to page.'  (Publication abstract)

'Andrew McGahan's novel 1988 and short story ‘Kill the Old’ are re-evaluated in terms of their responses to the political and cultural needs of mid-1990s Queensland. These neglected and undervalued grunge works question the official celebrations connected with Australia's Bicentenary, especially Expo ’88, and interrogate predominantly white and masculinist notions of Australian identity. In so doing, they contribute to a less insular and ‘fuller version’ of Queensland literature.'  (Publication abstract)

'This article discusses the evocation of the Gothic as a narrative interrogation of the intersections between place, identity and power in Andrew McGahan's The White Earth (2004). The novel deploys common techniques of Gothic literary fiction to create a sense of disassociation from the grip of a European colonial sensibility. It achieves this in various ways, including by representing its central architectural figure of colonial dominance, Kuran House, as an emblem of aristocratic pastoral decline, then by invoking intimations of an ancient supernatural presence which intercedes in the linear descent of colonial possession and, ultimately, by providing a rational explanation for the novel's events. The White Earth further demonstrates the inherently adaptive qualities of Gothic narrative technique as a means of confronting the limits to white belonging in post-colonial Australia by referencing a key historical moment, the 1992 Mabo judgment, which rejected the concept of terra nullius and recognised native title under Australian common law. At once discursive and performative, the sustained way in which the work employs the tropic power of Gothic anxiety serves to reveal the uncertain terms in which its characters negotiate what it means to be Australian, more than 200 years after colonial invasion.' (Publication abstract)

'As a poet, librettist, short story writer and novelist, David Malouf has produced more than twenty volumes since his Bicycle and Other Poems was published in 1970. Until recently, 12 Edmondstone Street (1984) was his only volume of non- fiction. But throughout his writing career, he has also been an active reviewer, essayist and public speaker. His words can be found in the files of magazines and newspapers, and in his introductions to works of literature, performances and art exhibitions. His public addresses live on in the memories of those fortunate enough to have heard him speak.' (Introduction)

'As most historians know well, Queensland was once part of New South Wales, so the pre-Separation history of the colony is an important period. Unfortunately, not enough work has been done on the ‘Queensland’ frontier before 1859, and many details remain obscure or unknown. Libby Connors’ excellent new book has changed that situation, providing Queenslanders with a remarkably detailed and well-researched account of Brisbane’s early race relations history. There is no longer any excuse for ‘not knowing’ what happened to Aboriginal people in the state’s south-east in those first years of contact.' (Introduction)

'‘I have no interest in writing a back-stabbing, tell-all critique of my colleagues in public life . . . Those readers who’ve come looking for gossip and intrigue can return this book to its shelf.’ So warns Anna Bligh in the preface to her memoir, Through the Wall: Reflections on Leadership, Love and Survival (2015: x). While this attitude is admirable, unfortunately it leaves the reader with only a general impression of Bligh’s involvement in politics during what was arguably the most momentous time in Queensland’s political history. This period spanned the last years and fall of the far-too-long-term Bjelke-Petersen government, the election of the Goss Labor government, and the subsequent ups and downs of the Labor party, including Bligh’s own leadership. I wasn’t particularly looking for gossip and intrigue (although I wouldn’t turn my nose up at either), but character sketches of more of the main players on both sides of politics would have been a valuable addition to the historical knowledge of that period — and there is no denying that there were some great characters, for good and ill, in politics at that time.' (Introduction)

'Peter Roennfeldt’s study of the musician Henrietta Willmore might have been called The Fortunes of Henrietta Percival because, like Henry Handel Richardson’s trilogy, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, it is a migrant story. Henrietta Percival came to Brisbane in 1864 as the wife of Alfred Mallalieu and, as their family grew, Henrietta established herself as a teacher and the ‘most accomplished female pianist and organist to have resided in colonial Brisbane’ (2015: vi). While the physician Mahony initially prospers in Australia, but ultimately succumbs to madness, Henrietta (who reinvents herself as Madame Mallalieu) is more resilient. She overcomes personal sorrow following the death of her daughter, survives the disappearance of two husbands and leaves an important cultural legacy.' (Introduction)

'This sumptuous book, written by ornithological research scientist and natural history author Penny Olsen, celebrates the life and work of natural history artist, William T. Cooper (1934–2015), described by David Attenborough in his ‘Foreword’ as ‘arguably one of the greatest of all bird artists’ (2014: viii). This is a big claim, since Attenborough includes Cooper among the significant bird artists of the past, such as John Gould (1804–81) and John James Audubon (1785–1851), as well as contemporary artists. Does the book validate this assertion?'  (Introduction)