Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 Alexis Wright’s Fiction, Aboriginal Realism, and the Sovereignty of the Indigenous Mind
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The Indigenous Australian author Alexis Wright has developed a novelistic oeuvre that experiments with written forms of fiction, and paints an Aboriginal universe that does not need European epistemology to sustain itself. Rather, it questions western values, certainties, and convictions and problematizes the western way of seeing and doing in the island-continent. Her latest novel, The Swan Book, in manifesting its spiritual and mystical connections to the holistic universe known as the Dreamtime, foregrounds this epistemological turn, which is premised on the ontological relationship Aboriginal people have with “Country,” their traditional land. Alexis Wright’s fiction, which she herself has called an instance of “Aboriginal reality” or “Aboriginal realism,” as opposed to magic realism, is an epic tour de force that juxtaposes the Indigenous and European traditions in startling ways but also speaks across a cultural divide – the discursive gap between colonized and colonizer, belonging and non-belonging, assimilation and sovereignty – which this essay will address.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Commonwealth : Essays and Studies Alexis Wright vol. 44 no. 2 2022 24301365 2022 periodical issue

    'This special issue on Alexis Wright’s work includes ten academic articles, seven of which focus on Wright’s Carpentaria (2006), while three discuss the author’s two other novels – Plains of Promise (1997) and The Swan Book (2013) – and oeuvre as a whole. The issue also contains art and poetry by Australian Indigenous creative artists, as well as the reprint of a review of Carpentaria and a reflexive essay on translating Wright’s works into Chinese. From the centrality of Indigenous epistemologies in Wright’s oeuvre to her narrative creativity, representation of country, commitment to a sovereignty of the mind, humour, and refusal of genres, the various contributions to the special issue propose original analyses and approaches to better understand Wright’s nuanced, complex novels and non-fiction works.' (Publication summary)

     

    2022
Last amended 5 Apr 2022 08:13:29
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