image of person or book cover 499241216010400339.jpg
This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon Maria's War single work   novel  
  • Author:agent Amy Witting http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/witting-amy
Issue Details: First known date: 1998... 1998 Maria's War
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Latest Issues

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Novel dealing with relationships and jouneyings. Erica becomes friendly with the elegant Maria, who is haunted by war-time memories. The author's other publications include 'Marriages' and 'A Change in the Lighting'.'(Publication summary)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 1998 .
      image of person or book cover 499241216010400339.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 254p.
      Reprinted: 1999
      Note/s:
      • Published: August 1998
      ISBN: 0670883123

Other Formats

  • Sound recording.
  • Large print.

Works about this Work

Literary Cultures of Eastern European 'Displaced Persons' in Australia : Elena Jonaitis, Helen Boris, Pavla Gruden and Elga Rodze-Kisele Sonia Mycak , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , October vol. 11 no. 4 2014; (p. 423-435)

This paper draws upon findings from a project undertaken to interview writers who came to Australia as ‘Displaced Persons’ (DPs) after the Second World War, and examines the literary cultures within their communities. The focus is on four women writers, who exemplify the talent, resourcefulness, and contribution these immigrants made to literary and cultural life in Australia, and who significantly contribute to establishing alternative histories of Australian literature. The writers are Elena Jonaitis, originally from Lithuania; Helen Boris from Ukraine; Elga Rodze-Kisele from Latvia; and Pavla Gruden from Slovenia. The four women reveal how ethno-cultural identity and national attachments are an important aspect of these literary cultures. Their work also shows how their personal experience of immigration and the specificities of the DP experience impacts on literary production. These writers have had work published in their ethno-cultural community in Australia, their wider international diaspora and their original homeland. They have also established literary and cultural networks within their local community, and managed to engage a wider Australian audience. [Author's abstract]

A Literary Biographical Exploration of the Transnational Literary Journeys of the Australian Writer Amy Witting and a Lithuanian Migrant Elena Jonaitis Coleen Smee , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 14 no. 1 2014;
This paper explores the genesis and reflexivity of two inter-connected texts, one Elena’s Journey (1997), an autobiographical memoir of a Lithuanian migrant woman Elena Jonaitis and the other, Maria’s War (1998), a fictional novel written by the acclaimed Australian author Amy Witting. The latter text was first conceived from the oral recount of Elena Jonaitis’ experiences fleeing across Germany during World War Two. Witting, an Australian writer in a transnational setting, recognised the significance of Jonaitis’ story, even travelling to Germany to research material for a novel based on the migrant woman’s experiences. Witting subsequently decided that she was too much of ‘a born barnacle’ to write a novel underpinned by places and cultural discourses located outside Australia. Instead, Witting empowered Jonaitis, the other, a woman for whom English was a second language, to write her own story, one of ‘dispossession, endurance, love and survival.’ Soon after, Witting used the life writing of ‘the other’ to inform her own fiction, grounding her novel Maria’s War in Australia by creating the persona of an elderly migrant woman living in a retirement hostel in Sydney, who recounts her war-time experiences to a biographer. Witting commented that both books were ‘tracing the path followed by many Australian citizens and ancestors’. (Publication abstract)
The Disempowerment of Women in the Domestic Sphere : The Fiction of Amy Witting (1918 – 2001) Coleen Smee , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Crossroads : An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics , vol. 6 no. 2 2013; (p. 94-103)

'This article examines ways in which the fiction of the acclaimed Australian writer Amy Witting, dubbed Australia’s Chekov and whom Helen Garner acknowledged as her ‘literary mother,’ interrogates the disempowerment of women in the domestic sphere, asserting that the home is a contested space and conflicted place for women. Witting subverts the notion that a ‘woman’s place is in the home’ by demonstrating that many

women are actually displaced and dispossessed in the inhibiting domestic spaces that are their ‘homes.’ In her fiction, women are isolated and excluded because of gender inequity

in regard to women’s rights and duties in the domestic sphere. Women are also marginalised in regard to inadequate financial rewards for domestic productivity and are affected by circumstances underpinned by discourses of poverty, class conflict and domestic violence. Witting asserts that the disempowerment of women in the home often leads to women appropriating masculinist attitudes and behaviours of oppression towards other women less powerful than themselves. In this article, these concepts are explored with close reference to five of Witting’s novels and interviews conducted with the author.' (Author's abstract)

Paperbacks Graham Clark , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 27 March 1999; (p. 8)

— Review of Maria's War Amy Witting , 1998 single work novel
Memories of War, Love and Loss Christopher Bantick , 1998 single work biography
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 16 August 1998; (p. 20)
Paperbacks Fiona Capp , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 29 August 1998; (p. 9)

— Review of Maria's War Amy Witting , 1998 single work novel
Reflections on Human Nature Hilary Beaton , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 5 September 1998; (p. 8)

— Review of Maria's War Amy Witting , 1998 single work novel
Retired, but Hardly Retiring Debra Adelaide , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 24 October 1998; (p. 9)

— Review of Maria's War Amy Witting , 1998 single work novel
Tea and Tennessee Peter Craven , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 12-13 September 1998; (p. 14)

— Review of Maria's War Amy Witting , 1998 single work novel
Untitled Jane Fraser , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian's Review of Books , September vol. 3 no. 6 1998; (p. 28)

— Review of Maria's War Amy Witting , 1998 single work novel
Memories of War, Love and Loss Christopher Bantick , 1998 single work biography
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 16 August 1998; (p. 20)
A Tale of Two Elenas Angela Bennie , 1998 single work biography
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 5 September 1998; (p. 8)
The Disempowerment of Women in the Domestic Sphere : The Fiction of Amy Witting (1918 – 2001) Coleen Smee , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Crossroads : An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics , vol. 6 no. 2 2013; (p. 94-103)

'This article examines ways in which the fiction of the acclaimed Australian writer Amy Witting, dubbed Australia’s Chekov and whom Helen Garner acknowledged as her ‘literary mother,’ interrogates the disempowerment of women in the domestic sphere, asserting that the home is a contested space and conflicted place for women. Witting subverts the notion that a ‘woman’s place is in the home’ by demonstrating that many

women are actually displaced and dispossessed in the inhibiting domestic spaces that are their ‘homes.’ In her fiction, women are isolated and excluded because of gender inequity

in regard to women’s rights and duties in the domestic sphere. Women are also marginalised in regard to inadequate financial rewards for domestic productivity and are affected by circumstances underpinned by discourses of poverty, class conflict and domestic violence. Witting asserts that the disempowerment of women in the home often leads to women appropriating masculinist attitudes and behaviours of oppression towards other women less powerful than themselves. In this article, these concepts are explored with close reference to five of Witting’s novels and interviews conducted with the author.' (Author's abstract)

A Literary Biographical Exploration of the Transnational Literary Journeys of the Australian Writer Amy Witting and a Lithuanian Migrant Elena Jonaitis Coleen Smee , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 14 no. 1 2014;
This paper explores the genesis and reflexivity of two inter-connected texts, one Elena’s Journey (1997), an autobiographical memoir of a Lithuanian migrant woman Elena Jonaitis and the other, Maria’s War (1998), a fictional novel written by the acclaimed Australian author Amy Witting. The latter text was first conceived from the oral recount of Elena Jonaitis’ experiences fleeing across Germany during World War Two. Witting, an Australian writer in a transnational setting, recognised the significance of Jonaitis’ story, even travelling to Germany to research material for a novel based on the migrant woman’s experiences. Witting subsequently decided that she was too much of ‘a born barnacle’ to write a novel underpinned by places and cultural discourses located outside Australia. Instead, Witting empowered Jonaitis, the other, a woman for whom English was a second language, to write her own story, one of ‘dispossession, endurance, love and survival.’ Soon after, Witting used the life writing of ‘the other’ to inform her own fiction, grounding her novel Maria’s War in Australia by creating the persona of an elderly migrant woman living in a retirement hostel in Sydney, who recounts her war-time experiences to a biographer. Witting commented that both books were ‘tracing the path followed by many Australian citizens and ancestors’. (Publication abstract)
Literary Cultures of Eastern European 'Displaced Persons' in Australia : Elena Jonaitis, Helen Boris, Pavla Gruden and Elga Rodze-Kisele Sonia Mycak , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , October vol. 11 no. 4 2014; (p. 423-435)

This paper draws upon findings from a project undertaken to interview writers who came to Australia as ‘Displaced Persons’ (DPs) after the Second World War, and examines the literary cultures within their communities. The focus is on four women writers, who exemplify the talent, resourcefulness, and contribution these immigrants made to literary and cultural life in Australia, and who significantly contribute to establishing alternative histories of Australian literature. The writers are Elena Jonaitis, originally from Lithuania; Helen Boris from Ukraine; Elga Rodze-Kisele from Latvia; and Pavla Gruden from Slovenia. The four women reveal how ethno-cultural identity and national attachments are an important aspect of these literary cultures. Their work also shows how their personal experience of immigration and the specificities of the DP experience impacts on literary production. These writers have had work published in their ethno-cultural community in Australia, their wider international diaspora and their original homeland. They have also established literary and cultural networks within their local community, and managed to engage a wider Australian audience. [Author's abstract]

Last amended 14 May 2020 12:43:56
X