Tirra Lirra by the River
South Melbourne
:
Macmillan
,
1978
Z300858
1978
single work
novel
(taught in 19 units)
'Liza used to say that she saw her past life as a string of roughly-graded balls, and so did Hilda have a linear conception of hers, thinking of it as a track with detours. But for some years now I have likened mine to a globe suspended in my head, and ever since the shocking realisation that waste is irretrievalbe, I have been careful not to let this globe spin to expose the nether side on which my marriage has left its multitude of images.
'Nora Porteous has spent most of her life waiting to escape. Fleeing from her small-town family and then from her stifling marriage to a mean-spirited husband, Nora arrives finally in London where she creates a new life for herself as a successful dressmaker.
'Now in her seventies, Nora returns to Queensland to settle into her childhood home.
'But Nora has been away a long time, and the people and events of her past are not at all like she remembered them. And while some things never change, Nora is about to discover just how selective her 'globe of memory' has been.
'Tirra Lirra by the River is a moving account of one woman's remarkable life, a beautifully written novel which displays the lyrical brevity of Jessica Anderson's award-winning style.' (Publication summary)
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.)
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)
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.
ENGL1100 “Introduction to Australian Literature” provides a general introduction to the study of Australian literature. In addition to surveying 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. An initial look at nineteenth century texts (exclusively poetry and short stories) to acquaint students with the basic issues addressed in the literature of this period: convictism, men's rural working lives, women's lives, conflict with indigenous peoples etc.
2. A survey of the literature of the the twentieth century using short stories, novels, poetry and a sampling of indigenous texts to focus on a number of issues: black-white relationships, women's lives, competing ethnicities within Australian culture, etc.
3. A brief look at short stories and poems which might foreshadow issues in Australian literature in the twenty-first century.
30%
Tutorial Participation and Attendance
10%
Essay - Write Your Own Colonial Poem or Short Story
20%
Research Essay
40%
Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991.
Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory 4th ed. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin, 1998.
Wilde, William, Joy Hooton and Barry Andrews. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. 2nd ed. Oxford: London, 1994.
