Cirrus@Austlit

'Thomas Keneally is known as a best-selling novelist and public figure in his Australian homeland and has also managed a transnational career. He is, however, something of a conundrum in being regularly disparaged by critics and often failing to meet expectations of sales. ‘Thomas Keneally’s Career and the Literary Machine’ explains some of the reasons behind such disparities, focusing in part on his deliberate transition from high-style modernist to ‘journeyman’ entertainer while continuing to write across both modes.

'Reactions to this shift have been framed by critical and cultural investments, and by an idea of the literary career common to both high literary and popular taste. This study examines the complex network that is a career, considering personality traits, authorial agency, agents, editors and shifts in publishing from colonial control to multinational corporations. As such, the study moves across and beyond conventional literary biography and literary history, incorporating aspects of book history and celebrity studies.

'Of Indian Origin is a dazzling collection of short stories and poetry by Australian writers of Indian origin. Cultures collide as children encounter racism in the playgrounds of Canberra, migrant women scrounge for a living nursing Melbourne's elderly, and a young author moves to a strange and unfamiliar country where she suffers from dreamlessness. These searing works bring new meaning to the field of ‘Asian-Australian writing’ and new perspectives on the Indian diasporic experience. Though the field of Indian-Australian writing is still small, this vibrant mix of emerging and established writers shows it is by no means a homogenous entity. Bold, experimental and wildly original, Of Indian Origin unapologetically tackles issues of home and provides a unique overview of how Indian-Australian literary writing has developed over half a century.'  (Publication summary)