Andrew McGahan is one of Queensland’s most successful novelists. Over the past 23 years, he has p... more Andrew McGahan is one of Queensland’s most successful novelists. Over the past 23 years, he has published six adult novels and three novels in his Ship Kings series for young adults. McGahan’s debut novel, Praise (1992), won the Vogel National Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, Last Drinks (2000) won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing, and The White Earth went on to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award, The Age Book of the Year Award and the Courier- Mail Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. In 2009, Wonders of a Godless World earned McGahan the Best Science Fiction Novel in the Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction. McGahan’s unashamedly open critiques of Australian, and specifically Queensland, society have imbued his works with a sense of place and space that is a unique trait of his writing. In this interview, McGahan allows us a brief visit into the mind of one of Australia’s pre-eminent contemporary authors, shedding light on the ‘what ifs’ and ‘idle daydreaming’ that have pushed his ideas from periphery to page.
In her latest book E. Dawson Varughese takes on the difficult task of categorising and schematisi... more In her latest book E. Dawson Varughese takes on the difficult task of categorising and schematising a new genre of Indian fiction. Varughese's analysis is deeply couched in generic approaches to understanding the value and position of literary texts socially and culturally. Her rhetoric relies on an implicit 'Indianness' of the texts that she analyses and the ways in which this 'Indianness' is communicated to the reader. As a nationalised study, the book would be of use to researchers interested in exploring literary expressions of Indian values and the ways in which India's rich mythological history has formed and continues to form part of its culture. However, Genre Fiction of New India may also be valuable to researchers who are investigating ways in which speculative fiction is affected by the society and culture in which it is produced and what this contributes to meaning making. Varughese's first port of call is to set her study within a specific temporal space, that being post-millennial India. There are two primary movers which happen in this period in India that create space for Varughese's study: the proliferation of Anglicised readerships and the growth of the publishing industry. This sparked a rise in Anglicisation that, coupled with the success of some Indian texts in the 'wider Anglo-American market' (9), led to the cross-pollination of Indian tradition and culture with that of Westernised genre fiction. Varughese briefly addresses the transnationalisation of texts and literatures and the universalism of Indian traditionhood, but after this brief digression she seems to leave this by the wayside. This undermines some of the surety with which Varughese later speaks on the 'universal' values communicated by quasi-mythological Indian texts like the Rig Veda and The Mahabharata. Rather, Varughese supplements the lack of this depth of transnationalism with a commitment to the conflict between the Westernised weird fiction genre and its conflict with the Indian concept of itihasa. The backbone of Varughese's rhetoric relies on this conflict because it is the determining point which necessitates her justification of the new genre fiction, which she terms Bharati Fantasy. Varughese's Bharati Fantasy pivots on the role of itihasa within the post-millennial Indian consciousness. She constructs its opposition to Western mythologising as such; where in the West 'myth uses " narrative " to convey certain truths' (original emphasis), in India, mythology is 'that which was believed to have happened in the past' (30). In this approximation, itihasa is belief that the mythos upon which Indian culture has been built is, to varying degrees, factual. Using this argument, Varughese extends this to argue that her concept of Bharati Fantasy, in the vein of weird genre fiction, 'narrates both a shared history and a set of attitudes for living' (35). For all her talk of transnationalism and the universalism of these texts Varughese explicitly suggests that Bharati Fantasy is written for Indians by Indians, indeed the title of her book alludes to as much. In this way, Varughese promotes her argument that Bharati Fantasy offers a portal for authors to palimpsestically transcribe ancient Indian values and traditions onto modern
The collection of essays collated by Barbara Buchenau, Virginia Richter and Marijke Denger in Pos... more The collection of essays collated by Barbara Buchenau, Virginia Richter and Marijke Denger in Post Empire Imaginaries?: Anglophone Literature, History and the Demise of Empires encapsulates an emerging critical theory that has come to be known as the Post-Empire. The term is less a commentary following the fall of Empire than a theoretics that seeks to establish the framework around which we now view the social, cultural, political and economic ramifications of empire on the contemporary consciousness. The introduction, by Buchenau and Richter, is an exposition dedicated to establishing the need for post-imperial criticism, they suggest that fictive literature provides a framework for an imaginative post-imperial position which allows a literary conceptualisation of empire which is at once playful and critical. However, Buchenau and Richter's conception of this post-empire imaginary has the tendency to romanticise the memory of empire. Furthermore, it is questionable as to how much of post-colonial criticism is consumed in the post-imperial approach and vice versa. Some of the collected essays suggest that the post-colonial is more keenly focused on the interplay between core and periphery, while others make little distinction between the post-colonial and the post-imperial. Rainer Emig's essay, The Hermeneutics of Empire: Imperialism as an Interpretation Strategy, poses an excellent counterpoint to Buchenau and Richter's post-empire romantics. Emig is diligent in his treatment of the great propaganda mill of imperial institution. Identifying the subtle cultural production of patriotism and imperial spirit in literary forms, Emig takes the opportunity to illustrate how post-colonial criticism, particularly in literature and film, challenged British imperial traditions. Emig focuses directly on the film adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth, showing that the imperialistic and propagandistic tropes he exposes are prolific in the American film industry. Emig's essay gives consideration to the ways in which modern philosophy has forced us to reconsider the collective imagining of the imperial past. In a similar fashion, Eva Maria Müller exposes the discursive empire-building practices of education. Invoking Louis Althusser and Benedict Anderson, she illustrates the ways in which the teacher figure was utilised to reinforce imperial didacticism and how schools of the empire became outposts in service to continuing the displacement of subaltern cultures and societies through the institution of empire. While this is not a new concept in imperial theorising, Müller's study of the teacher figure 'as metonyms for the Australian nation' (101) contributes to the framework for a post-imperial analysis of education as an imperial institution. Kerstin Knopf takes a similar bent to Müller with regard to the moralising didacticism of the empire but manages to push the notion further through his exposition of imperial exploratory practice. Knopf establishes the mythologising of Arctic exploration in the collective British imperial consciousness as critical to its reputation as coloniser. Invoking Jen Hill, Knopf shows that the Arctic space represented the limit of both the British Empire and human experience and that the role of Arctic exploration was to 'break … this limit and transform it from an empty into an imperial space' (72). Looking at the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin in 1845, Knopf highlights the similarities between the British stoicism inherent in the myth of Franklin's voyage and that which is espoused by Victorian literature. In doing so, Knopf re-evaluates the role of imperial
Andrew McGahan is one of Queensland’s most successful novelists. Over the past 23 years, he has p... more Andrew McGahan is one of Queensland’s most successful novelists. Over the past 23 years, he has published six adult novels and three novels in his Ship Kings series for young adults. McGahan’s debut novel, Praise (1992), won the Vogel National Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, Last Drinks (2000) won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing, and The White Earth went on to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award, The Age Book of the Year Award and the Courier- Mail Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. In 2009, Wonders of a Godless World earned McGahan the Best Science Fiction Novel in the Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction. McGahan’s unashamedly open critiques of Australian, and specifically Queensland, society have imbued his works with a sense of place and space that is a unique trait of his writing. In this interview, McGahan allows us a brief visit into the mind of one of Australia’s pre-eminent contemporary authors, shedding light on the ‘what ifs’ and ‘idle daydreaming’ that have pushed his ideas from periphery to page.
In her latest book E. Dawson Varughese takes on the difficult task of categorising and schematisi... more In her latest book E. Dawson Varughese takes on the difficult task of categorising and schematising a new genre of Indian fiction. Varughese's analysis is deeply couched in generic approaches to understanding the value and position of literary texts socially and culturally. Her rhetoric relies on an implicit 'Indianness' of the texts that she analyses and the ways in which this 'Indianness' is communicated to the reader. As a nationalised study, the book would be of use to researchers interested in exploring literary expressions of Indian values and the ways in which India's rich mythological history has formed and continues to form part of its culture. However, Genre Fiction of New India may also be valuable to researchers who are investigating ways in which speculative fiction is affected by the society and culture in which it is produced and what this contributes to meaning making. Varughese's first port of call is to set her study within a specific temporal space, that being post-millennial India. There are two primary movers which happen in this period in India that create space for Varughese's study: the proliferation of Anglicised readerships and the growth of the publishing industry. This sparked a rise in Anglicisation that, coupled with the success of some Indian texts in the 'wider Anglo-American market' (9), led to the cross-pollination of Indian tradition and culture with that of Westernised genre fiction. Varughese briefly addresses the transnationalisation of texts and literatures and the universalism of Indian traditionhood, but after this brief digression she seems to leave this by the wayside. This undermines some of the surety with which Varughese later speaks on the 'universal' values communicated by quasi-mythological Indian texts like the Rig Veda and The Mahabharata. Rather, Varughese supplements the lack of this depth of transnationalism with a commitment to the conflict between the Westernised weird fiction genre and its conflict with the Indian concept of itihasa. The backbone of Varughese's rhetoric relies on this conflict because it is the determining point which necessitates her justification of the new genre fiction, which she terms Bharati Fantasy. Varughese's Bharati Fantasy pivots on the role of itihasa within the post-millennial Indian consciousness. She constructs its opposition to Western mythologising as such; where in the West 'myth uses " narrative " to convey certain truths' (original emphasis), in India, mythology is 'that which was believed to have happened in the past' (30). In this approximation, itihasa is belief that the mythos upon which Indian culture has been built is, to varying degrees, factual. Using this argument, Varughese extends this to argue that her concept of Bharati Fantasy, in the vein of weird genre fiction, 'narrates both a shared history and a set of attitudes for living' (35). For all her talk of transnationalism and the universalism of these texts Varughese explicitly suggests that Bharati Fantasy is written for Indians by Indians, indeed the title of her book alludes to as much. In this way, Varughese promotes her argument that Bharati Fantasy offers a portal for authors to palimpsestically transcribe ancient Indian values and traditions onto modern
The collection of essays collated by Barbara Buchenau, Virginia Richter and Marijke Denger in Pos... more The collection of essays collated by Barbara Buchenau, Virginia Richter and Marijke Denger in Post Empire Imaginaries?: Anglophone Literature, History and the Demise of Empires encapsulates an emerging critical theory that has come to be known as the Post-Empire. The term is less a commentary following the fall of Empire than a theoretics that seeks to establish the framework around which we now view the social, cultural, political and economic ramifications of empire on the contemporary consciousness. The introduction, by Buchenau and Richter, is an exposition dedicated to establishing the need for post-imperial criticism, they suggest that fictive literature provides a framework for an imaginative post-imperial position which allows a literary conceptualisation of empire which is at once playful and critical. However, Buchenau and Richter's conception of this post-empire imaginary has the tendency to romanticise the memory of empire. Furthermore, it is questionable as to how much of post-colonial criticism is consumed in the post-imperial approach and vice versa. Some of the collected essays suggest that the post-colonial is more keenly focused on the interplay between core and periphery, while others make little distinction between the post-colonial and the post-imperial. Rainer Emig's essay, The Hermeneutics of Empire: Imperialism as an Interpretation Strategy, poses an excellent counterpoint to Buchenau and Richter's post-empire romantics. Emig is diligent in his treatment of the great propaganda mill of imperial institution. Identifying the subtle cultural production of patriotism and imperial spirit in literary forms, Emig takes the opportunity to illustrate how post-colonial criticism, particularly in literature and film, challenged British imperial traditions. Emig focuses directly on the film adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth, showing that the imperialistic and propagandistic tropes he exposes are prolific in the American film industry. Emig's essay gives consideration to the ways in which modern philosophy has forced us to reconsider the collective imagining of the imperial past. In a similar fashion, Eva Maria Müller exposes the discursive empire-building practices of education. Invoking Louis Althusser and Benedict Anderson, she illustrates the ways in which the teacher figure was utilised to reinforce imperial didacticism and how schools of the empire became outposts in service to continuing the displacement of subaltern cultures and societies through the institution of empire. While this is not a new concept in imperial theorising, Müller's study of the teacher figure 'as metonyms for the Australian nation' (101) contributes to the framework for a post-imperial analysis of education as an imperial institution. Kerstin Knopf takes a similar bent to Müller with regard to the moralising didacticism of the empire but manages to push the notion further through his exposition of imperial exploratory practice. Knopf establishes the mythologising of Arctic exploration in the collective British imperial consciousness as critical to its reputation as coloniser. Invoking Jen Hill, Knopf shows that the Arctic space represented the limit of both the British Empire and human experience and that the role of Arctic exploration was to 'break … this limit and transform it from an empty into an imperial space' (72). Looking at the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin in 1845, Knopf highlights the similarities between the British stoicism inherent in the myth of Franklin's voyage and that which is espoused by Victorian literature. In doing so, Knopf re-evaluates the role of imperial
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