The Mabo Turn in Australian Fiction

Description

Winner of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature‘s Alvie Egan Award 2019! Winner of the Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS) Dissertation Award 2018 This is the first in-depth, broad-based study of the impact of the Australian High Court’s landmark Mabo decision of 1992 on Australian fiction. More than any other event in Australia’s legal, political and cultural history, the Mabo judgement – which recognised indigenous Australians’ customary «native title» to land – challenged previous ways of thinking about land and space, settlement and belonging, race and relationships, and nation and history, both historically and contemporaneously. While Mabo’s impact on history, law, politics and film has been the focus of scholarly attention, the study of its influence on literature has been sporadic and largely limited to examinations of non-Aboriginal novels. Now, a quarter of a century after Mabo, this book takes a closer look at nineteen contemporary novels – including works by David Malouf, Alex Miller, Kate Grenville, Thea Astley, Tim Winton, Michelle de Kretser, Richard Flanagan, Alexis Wright and Kim Scott – in order to define and describe Australia’s literary imaginary as it reflects and articulates post-Mabo discourse today. Indeed, literature’s substantial engagement with Mabo’s cultural legacy – the acknowledgement of indigenous people’s presence in the land, in history, and in public affairs, as opposed to their absence – demands a re-writing of literary history to account for a “Mabo turn” in Australian fiction. Cover Contents Acknowledgements Introduction The Mabo Decision: Text and Context Post-Mabo Cultural Practice in Australia Post-Mabo History, Film and Literature Historiographic Realignments: Moving on from White Narrating the Nation Anew Part I: Writing After Mabo Chapter 1: Four Core Post-Mabo Novels David Malouf, Remembering Babylon (1993) Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country (2002) Andrew McGahan, The White Earth (2004) Finest patch of meadow Kate Grenville, The Secret River (2005) The silences of history Chapter 2: Re-writing the Past: Mabo and History Frontier Violence in Liam Davison’s The White Woman (1994) Admitting to committing murder Disease in Debra Adelaide’s Serpent Dust (1998) Multiple perspectives Exploration in Peter Mews’ Bright Planet (2004) Historiography in Richard Flanagan’s Death of a River Guide (1994) and Gould’s Book of Fish (2001) Death of a River Guide (1994) Gould’s Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish (2001) Chapter 3: Re-writing the Present: Mabo and Contemporary Australia Co-existence: Dorothy Hewett’s Neap Tide (1999) Aboriginal place Zac Mumbula Wik Zac’s speech and Gilbert’s legacy Shared belonging Fitting in, or not Respect and Visitorship: Tim Winton’s Dirt Music (2001) Colonial arrival Postcolonial departure Indigenous characters: Dirt Music and Cloudstreet Country Towns and Rural Place: Thea Astley’s The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow (1996) and Drylands (1999) Astley’s earlier fiction Multiple effects Dry land Weather changes Negotiated Belonging: Michelle de Kretser’s The Lost Dog (2007) and Simone Lazaroo’s Lost River: Four Albums (2014) Curthoys’ uneasy conversation The Lost Dog (2007) Lost River: Four Albums (2014) Supplementing bluff binaries Part II: Writing Beyond Mabo Chapter 4: Sovereignty: Mabo and Aboriginal-Authored Fiction Introducing Sovereignty Novels Sovereignty and Mabo Return of the “Unspeakable” Sovereign Voice: Orality and Narrative Invention in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (2006) Carpentaria: “Big in scope, ambition and physical size” Asserting orality in Carpentaria: Explicit strategies Asserting orality in Carpentaria: Implicit strategies Sovereignty and native title Sovereign Space and Sovereign Mentality: Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (2013) Swan Lake A sovereign homeland A sovereign mind Acting sovereign in Swan Lake Once Were Sovereign and Still Are: Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance (2010) Being of country A managed estate Were sovereign and still are Sovereignty Beyond Legal Title: Melissa Lucashenko’s Mullumbimby (2013) Land and belonging Cash on the stump Hard yakka, native title Liarbird place Internal and external, sovereign being and sovereign place Conclusion: Dominant, Residual and Emergent Cultures Framing a Literary Era Bibliography Index