Saying Yes with an Outreached Hand : Homelessness and Hospitality in Canadian and Australian Literature for Young People single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2010... 2010 Saying Yes with an Outreached Hand : Homelessness and Hospitality in Canadian and Australian Literature for Young People
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Between 2003 and 2008, more than fifteen books for children and young adults were published in Australia and at least thirteen in Canada that represent either literally or metaphorically the experiences of people whose family homes are no longer places of safety. In each of the texts analyzed in this essay - Shattered (2006) and Sketches (2007) by Eric Walters and The Island (2005) by John Heffernan - homelessness is represented not as the absence of a physical structure in which to live but as a an absence of belonging, an absence of hospitality. As the characters travel through their pathways of homelessness, they develop interdependent relationships with people, creatures, and/or structures personified as an outreached hand, a symbol and act of hospitality. In each of these books, endings are uncertain in order to offer readers not a closed, stable future, but a version of belonging that includes multiple possibilties. [Author's abstract]

Notes

  • Epigraph: Let us say yes to who or what turns up, before any determination, before any anticipation, before any identification, whether or not it has to do with a foreigner, an immigrant, an invited guest, or an unexpected visitor, whether or not the new arrival is the citizen of another country, a human, animal, or divine creature, a living or a dead thing, male or female. -- Derrida, Of Hospitality

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Last amended 22 Oct 2013 10:41:10
17-31 Saying Yes with an Outreached Hand : Homelessness and Hospitality in Canadian and Australian Literature for Young Peoplesmall AustLit logo Australasian Canadian Studies
Subjects:
  • The Island John Heffernan , 2005 single work picture book
  • c
    Canada,
    c
    Americas,
  • c
    Australia,
    c
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