Issue Details: First known date: 1981... 1981 Crossing the Gap : Asia and the Australian Imagination
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In 1955, a year after our graduation from university, m y friend Robert Brain and I set out for Europe. It was the traditional pilgrimage, in that era, for young Australians. W e were returning to a home we had never seen, to the cultural Blessed Isles. The numbers who made this grand tour were very small, then. There was no economy jet travel; w e embarked on a cheap Italian ship that would take five weeks to reach Genoa. Nor had the general phenomenon of Australian and Western youth touring the world on the cheap really begun. The simplest way I can convey this is to say that when we reached Europe and began hitch-hiking we had no trouble in being picked up, because drivers found us a novelty. They also thought us adventurous; and as w e passed farm gates, walking the highways of Italy and Germany, people would ask us in for a glass of wine. That was still the era when Greek peasants, finding foreigners passing their fields, would come out bringing gifts of food — the traditional hospitality to the wayfarer. They don't do it now; the hippies came through in the 1960s like a plague of locusts, living off that hospitality.' (Introduction)

Notes

  • Includes reference to the influence of Nirad Chauduri on Christopher Koch.
  • Paper presented at the 'Australian Writing Turns to Asia' Seminar held in November 1980.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Quadrant vol. 25 no. 1-2 January-February 1981 Z587923 1981 periodical issue 1981 pg. 4-9
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Rajasthan University Studies in English vol. 15 1982-1983 Z608157 1982-1983 periodical issue 1982-1983 pg. 13-25
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Crossing the Gap : A Novelist's Essays Christopher Koch , London : Chatto and Windus , 1987 Z492986 1987 selected work essay criticism autobiography

    'Essays discuss the author's native island of Tasmania, his experiences in London in the 1950s and California in the early 1960s, and his reflections on other writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Carlos Castaneda'  (Publication summary)

    London : Chatto and Windus , 1987
    pg. 1-25
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Crossing the Gap : A Novelist's Essays Christopher Koch , London : Chatto and Windus , 1987 Z492986 1987 selected work essay criticism autobiography

    'Essays discuss the author's native island of Tasmania, his experiences in London in the 1950s and California in the early 1960s, and his reflections on other writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Carlos Castaneda'  (Publication summary)

    Crossing the Gap : Memories and Reflections
    Milsons Point : Vintage Australia , 2000
    pg. 1-25

Works about this Work

Defection and Dislocation: The Fiction of Christopher Koch Peter Pierce , 1990 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 35 no. 2 1990; (p. 47-55)
Bridgework John Bray , 1987 single work review
— Appears in: The Adelaide Review , May no. 38 1987; (p. 13)

— Review of Crossing the Gap : Asia and the Australian Imagination Christopher Koch , 1981 single work criticism
Bridgework John Bray , 1987 single work review
— Appears in: The Adelaide Review , May no. 38 1987; (p. 13)

— Review of Crossing the Gap : Asia and the Australian Imagination Christopher Koch , 1981 single work criticism
Defection and Dislocation: The Fiction of Christopher Koch Peter Pierce , 1990 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 35 no. 2 1990; (p. 47-55)
Last amended 16 Jan 2020 13:32:12
4-9 Crossing the Gap : Asia and the Australian Imaginationsmall AustLit logo Quadrant
13-25 Crossing the Gap : Asia and the Australian Imaginationsmall AustLit logo Rajasthan University Studies in English
1-25 Crossing the Gap : Asia and the Australian Imaginationsmall AustLit logo
1-25 Crossing the Gap : Asia and the Australian Imaginationsmall AustLit logo
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Subjects:
  • c
    India,
    c
    South Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
  • c
    Indonesia,
    c
    Southeast Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
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