'This thesis is a broadly chronological study of representations of Japan and the Japanese in Australian novels, stories and memoirs from the late nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. Adopting Edward Said's Orientalist notion of the 'Other', it attempts to elaborate patterns in which Australian authors describe and evaluate the Japanese. As well as examining these patterns or representation, this thesis outlines the course of their development and change over the years, how they relate to the context in which they occur, and how they contribute to the formation of wider Australian views on Japan and the Japanese. - from the Author's abstract (p.ii)