Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead

(Paperback)

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Description

Australia has been seen as a land of both punishment and refuge. Australian literature has explored these controlling alternatives, and vividly rendered the landscape on which they transpire. Twentieth-century writers left Australia to see the world; now Australias distance no longer provides sanctuary. But today the global perspective has arrived with a vengeance.

In Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead, Nicholas Birns tells the story of how novelists, poets and critics, from Patrick White to Hannah Kent, from Alexis Wright to Christos Tsiolkas, responded to this condition. With rancour, concern and idealism, modern Australian literature conveys a tragic sense of the past yet an abiding vision of the way forward.

Birns paints a vivid picture of a rich Australian literary voice one not lost to the churning of global markets, but in fact given new life by it. Contrary to the despairing of the critics, Australian literary identity continues to flourish. And as Birns finds, it is not one thing, but many.

Reviews

Contemporary Australian Literature is a book of wide-ranging ideas and surprising conjunctions. It does not claim to offer authoritative readings, but its insistence that literature has a direct relationship to prevailing economic doctrine should stimulate new discussions among Australian readers.

'In Birnss vision, exemplary Australian prose and poetry are united in their responsiveness to the unique challenge of neoliberalism and its threats to the imagination ... In Contemporary Australian Literature Birnss critical flexibility can be seen in how easily he draws poetry and prose into dialogue with one anothers ideas and histories.'

Author Bio

Nicholas Birns is a professor at the New School, New York. He is a leading scholar of Australian literature and editor of Antipodes, the publication of the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies.