'Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety.
'The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands.
'This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways.
'From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society.
'Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed.' (Publisher's blurb)
Allen and Unwin have a YouTube channel with a number of useful videos on the Anthology.
Launched in Sydney, New South Wales by Quentin Bryce, 30 July 2009. Followed by a celebratory event at Gleebooks, Glebe, New South Wales, 31 July 2009 and a one-day symposium, 'Australian Literary Futures', Dixson Room, State Library of NSW, 1 August 2009.
A letter written by Bennelong in 1796.
Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature
Anita Heiss
(editor),
Peter Minter
(editor),
Nicholas Jose
(editor),
Crows Nest
:
Allen and Unwin
,
2008
Z1483175
2008
anthology
poetry
drama
prose
correspondence
criticism
extract
(taught in 19 units)
'An authoritative survey of Australian Aboriginal writing over two centuries, across a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. Including some of the most distinctive writing produced in Australia, it offers rich insights into Aboriginal culture and experience...
'The anthology includes journalism, petitions and political letters from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as major works that reflect the blossoming of Aboriginal poetry, prose and drama from the mid-twentieth century onwards. Literature has been used as a powerful political tool by Aboriginal people in a political system which renders them largely voiceless. These works chronicle the ongoing suffering of dispossession, but also the resilience of Aboriginal people across the country, and the hope and joy in their lives.' (Publisher's blurb)
Macquarie Pen Anthology of Australian Literature Teaching Guide
Anita Heiss
,
Crows Nest
:
Allen and Unwin
,
2009
15483667
2009
anthology
website
criticism
'The Teaching Guide is designed to accompany the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature. It comprises ten units framed around concepts that focus on a range of themes, ideas and issues, for lower, middle and upper secondary English students. It is supplemented by a range of film clips and other resources.
'While the Teaching Guide is designed specifically for secondary teachers and students, tertiary teachers will find useful questions and ideas within these units that could be used with their classes. The focus statements for each of the ten units along with the list of suggested texts provide ideas that could be adapted for discussion or assignment work at tertiary level.' (Publication summary)
'This paper examines three anthologies of Australian literature: The Oxford Anthology of Australian Literature (1985), The Macmillan Anthology of Australian Literature (1990), and Macquarie PEN The Anthology of Australian Literature (2010). It focusses on the politics of inclusion in anthology-making and the mechanics surrounding theme, perception, and ideology about literature as a reflection of a nation’s culture and identity. The increasing popularity of Asian Australian writing in recent years has raised concerns about how it is perceived as part of the national literary tradition that is a relatively white space. Not much is discussed about how Asian Australian writing appears in anthologies despite increasing critical attention given to them as a literary genre. Informed by Asian Australian studies and anthology criticism, this study charts the trends in the inclusion of Asian Australian writing and how it is posited within the larger national canon.' (Publication abstract)
'I thought I would begin this talk about the power and purpose of literature by talking about my 1998 book Take Power. The title came from a Gurindji Elder while telling the story of the ten-year battle his people fought against Vestey’s, a British pastoral company that owned the Wave Hill pastoral property in the north-west of the Northern Territory, when in 1966, 200 Gurindji, the traditional landowners, walked off the cattle station where they worked on their stolen lands because of the harsh treatment they were receiving from the management of the pastoral property. Vincent Lingiari, who led his people off Wave Hill, said: ‘We can’t go back to that Vestey’s. Vestey’s been treating me like a walagu (dog). Make mefella worry.’ The Gurindji kept telling their story straight, and eventually they achieved land rights over part of their traditional lands.' (Introduction)
This essay 'seeks to find new ways to address Australian poetry, through the example of Michael Dransfield, a controversially significant poet.' (139)
