Cirrus@Austlit

This article compares the Australian publication of Walg (1983) and an unabridged version which appeared in German a year earlier, Der Schoss, translated by Annemarie Böll from the original manuscript of the novel. It concludes that whereas the original manuscript and its German translation contained 'colonialist pornography, racialism and racism', appropriated anthropological material and forged a new mythology, the revised Australian version turned out to become quite a different book, a censored version. The author argues that this needs to be considered in a critical assessment of the novel and its author.