Cirrus@Austlit

'The Australian writer Gail Jones excels at "transnational writing" and Sixty Lights is one prominent example. The novel explores the themes of home, travel and "intercultural fort\da" by highlighting the fluidity of identity. Lucy changes her "home" frequently only to showcase the difference of her identity, and her three journeys across the ocean construct her identity within the sameness. Hence Lucy carries out the practice of "intercultural fort\da," pursuing "the contact zone," which exemplifies "contradictory subject positions," "relationality," and "situationality." In this neo-Victorian novel, Lucy’s identity transcends space and time, dispelling the contradictions and anxieties in the construction of her cultural identity. She finally becomes a unique "global traveller" and a "woman of the future."' (Publication abstract)