True History of the Kelly Gang
St Lucia
:
University of Queensland Press
,
2000
Z668312
2000
single work
novel
historical fiction
(taught in 29 units)
'"I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false."
'In TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, the legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semi-literate but magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is nothing but a monstrous criminal, a thief and a murderer. To his own people, the lowly class of ordinary Australians, the bushranger is a hero, defying the authority of the English to direct their lives. Indentured by his bootlegger mother to a famous horse thief (who was also her lover), Ned saw his first prison cell at 15 and by the age of 26 had become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over whole towns and defying the law until he was finally captured and hanged. Here is a classic outlaw tale, made alive by the skill of a great novelist.' (From the publisher's website.)
Coonardoo : The Well in the Shadow
1928
Z1081769
1928
single work
novel
(taught in 39 units)
Set in North-West of Western Australia, it describes life on cattle stations and the relationship between the white owner of the station and Coonardoo, an Aboriginal woman.
The Australian Short Story : An Anthology from the 1890s to the 1980s
Laurie Hergenhan
(editor),
St Lucia
:
University of Queensland Press
,
1986
Z380969
1986
anthology
short story
(taught in 13 units)
Loaded
Milsons Point
:
Vintage Australia
,
1995
Z565443
1995
single work
novel
(taught in 40 units)
'Families can detonate. Some families are torn apart forever by one small act, one solitary mistake. In my family it was a series of small explosions; consistent, passionate, pathetic. Cruel words, crude threats... We spurred each other on till we reached a crescendo of pain and we retired exhausted to our rooms, in tears or in fury.
'Ari is nineteen, unemployed and a poofter who doesn't want to be gay. He is looking for something - anything - to take him away from his aimless existence in suburban Melbourne. He doesn't believe in anyone or anything, except the power of music. All he wants to do is dance, take drugs, have sex and change the world.
'For Ari, all the orthodoxies of family, sex, politics and work have collapsed. Caught between the traditional Greek world of his parents and friends and the alluring, destructive world of clubs, chemicals and anonymous sex, all Ari can do is ease his pain in the only ways he knows how.
'Written in stark, uncompromising prose, Loaded is a first novel of great passion and power.' (From the publisher's website.)
Fly Away Peter
The Bread of Time to Come
1982
London
:
Chatto and Windus
,
1982
Z22123
1982
single work
novella
war literature
(taught in 14 units)
'For three very different people brought together by their love for birds, life on the Queensland coast in 1914 is the timeless and idyllic world of sandpipers, ibises and kingfishers. In another hemisphere civilization rushes headlong into a brutal conflict. Life there is lived from moment to moment. Inevitably, the two young men - sanctuary owner and employee - are drawn to the war, and into the mud and horror of the trenches of Armentieres. Alone on the beach, their friend Imogen, the middle-aged wildlife photographer, must acknowledge for all three of them that the past cannot be held.' (Source: Publisher's website)
The Colour of Walls
Carlton North
:
The Vulgar Press
,
2003
Z1081975
2003
single work
novel
(taught in 2 units)
“Introduction to Australian Literature” (ENGL1100) provides a general introduction to the study of Australian literature. In reading texts from a range of genres and periods, students will be introduced to critical reading skills, and to significant themes in Australian cultural history.
The course comprises three sections:
1. Study of two novels which consider the relationship between story-telling, history and fiction: Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang, and Janet Kelly's The Colour of Walls.
2. A study of short stories from the late nineteenth and twentieth century, which looks in detail at literary form and stylistic innovation.
3. Discussion of three novels/novellas which consider key themes in Australian culture: invasion and its representation; war and masculity; and sexuality and cultural identity.
The course will also introduce you to research resources in the field of Australian literature, among which the most helpful is the Austlit database (at http://www.austlit.edu.au/). You are encouraged to browse in Austlit to get a sense of the range of contemporary and historical writing and criticism.
40%
Essay - True Histories?
25%
Essay - Reading Short Stories
35%
AustLit: Online Database for Australian Literature
Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.
Wilde, William, Joy Hooton and Barry Andrews. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. 2nd ed. Oxford: London, 1994.
