Cirrus@Austlit

'This volume marks the birth centenary of a giant amongst contemporary writers: the Australian Nobel prize-winning novelist, Patrick White (1912–1990). It proffers an invaluable insight into the current state of White studies through commentaries drawn from an international galaxy of eminent critics, as well as from newer talents. The book proves that interest in White’s work continues to grow and diversify.

'Every essay offers a new insight: some are re-evaluations by seasoned critics who revise earlier positions significantly; others admit new light onto what has seemed like well-trodden terrain or focus on works perhaps undervalued in the past—his poetry, an early short story or novel—which are now subjected to fresh attention. His posthumous work has also won attention from prominent critics. New comparisons with other international writers have been drawn in terms of subject matter, themes and philosophy.

'The expansion of critical attention into fields like photography and film opens new possibilities for enhancing further appreciation of his work. White’s interest in public issues such as the treatment of Australia’s Indigenous peoples, human rights and Australian nationalism is refracted through the inclusion of relevant commentaries from notable contributors.

'For the first time in Australian literary history, Indigenous scholars have participated in a celebration of the work of a white Australian writer. All of this highlights a new direction in White studies – the appreciation of his stature as a public intellectual. The book demonstrates that White’s legacy has limitless possibilities for further growth.' (Publisher's abstract)

'Few episodes in postcolonial Australian history have shown so remarkable a capacity to generate ever-increasing cross-fertilisations between myth, history and memory than the narratives centred on Eliza Fraser. The archive of materials surrounding the shipwreck of this British woman and her brief sojourn among the indigenous people of the Badtjala community of Fraser Island in the nineteenth century continues to grow.

Kay Schaffer's impressive work overtook earlier studies of the phenomenon but concentrates mainly on the many European re-constructions of the episode .The fecundity of the materials is far from exhausted. This paper explores some of the Aboriginal reactions to the tale but its main focus is Patrick White's novel A Fringe of Leaves, which grew out of his own research and constructs a new myth with implications for the nation. It is a work with the potential for developing (in Jim Davidson's words) "a myth of reconciliation, and possibilities of growth." This paper shows White's melding of history, myth, memory and imagination in this novel is illustrative of the literary artist's contribution to "writing the nation." ' Source: Cynthia vanden Driesen.

'The time for new approaches to White's work is overdue. Central to the present study are Edward Said's ideas about the role of the intellectual (and the writer) - of speaking "truth to power," and also the importance of tracing the "affiliations" of a text and its embeddedness in the world. This approach is not incompatible with Jung's theory of the 'great' artist and his capacity to answer the deep-seated psychic needs of his people.

'White's work has contributed in many different ways to the writing of the nation. The spiritual needs of a young nation such as Australia must also comprehend its continual urge towards self-definition. Explored here is one important aspect of that challenge: white Australia's dealings with the indigenous people of the land, tracing the significance of the Aboriginal presence in three texts selected from the oeuvre of Patrick White: Voss (1957), Riders in the Chariot (1961), and A Fringe of Leaves (1976). Each of these texts interrogates European culture's denigration of the non-European Other as embedded in the discourse of orientalism.

'One central merit of White's commanding perspective is the constant close attention he pays to European hubris and to the paramount autonomy of indigenous culture. There is evidence even of a project which can be articulated as a search for the possibility of white indigeneity, the potential for the white settler's belonging within the land as does the indigene.' (Publisher's website)

'This collection of papers signals the emergence of innovative developments in Australian Studies. In the area of cultural theory, some of the brightest talents from Australia, New Zealand and India theorize the fresh insights emerging through exploration of the commonalities of the shared colonial and postcolonial experience of these regions.' (Publication summary)