'When Jean Devanny (1894-1962) left New Zealand in 1929 bound for Sydney,
she considered Australia 'merely a transit point' and planned to travel on to
England, believing it to be 'a more favourable location for a novelist'. Devanny
gradually came to accept Australia as her home, as Carole Ferrier argues, because
of her 'double commitment' to the Communist Party of Australia and to her
development as a writer. While Ferrier's pioneering scholarship and definitive
biography offer invaluable insights into Devanny's life and writing, I will suggest
another perspective on both by exploring how her experiences in Australia
transformed her into a 'transnational' subject. (p.
215)