Australian Oceanian category: 71 books

Australia and New Zealand, united geographically by their location in the South Pacific and linguistically by their English-speaking inhabitants, share the strong bond of hope for cultural diversity and social equality--one often challenged by history, starting with the appropriation of land from...

One of Australia's most respected novelists, Alex Miller's writing is both popular and critically well-received. He is twice winner of Australia's premier literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award. He has said that writing is his way of 'locating connections' and his work is known for its deeply empathic...

In 2010, the Guardian named Melbourne critic Alison Croggon as a ‘must read’ critic. She was the first online critic to be awarded the Geraldine Pascall Critic of the Year, in 2009. Her blog Theatre Notes was the first theatre blog in Australia and, over its eight years of existence, made Croggon...

Since the mid-1980s there has been a sharp rise in the number of literary publications by Indigenous Australians and in the readership and impact of those works. One contemporary Aboriginal Australian author who continues to make a contribution to both the Australian and the global canon is Kim Scott...

Imagined Landscapes teams geocritical analysis with digital visualization techniques to map and interrogate films, novels, and plays in which space and place figure prominently. Drawing upon A Cultural Atlas of Australia, a database-driven interactive digital map that can be used to identify patterns...

During the 19th century, throughout the Anglophone world, most fiction was first published in periodicals. In Australia, newspapers were not only the main source of periodical fiction, but the main source of fiction in general. Because of their importance as fiction publishers, and because they provided...

In the years since the Second World War, Australia has seen a period of literary creativity which outshines any earlier period in the nation's literary history. This creativity has its beginnings in the arguments and alignments which emerged at the end of the War, and the changes in perceptions of...

Margaret Preston on Australian women artists; Miles Franklin on suffragist Rose Scott; Eleanor Dark on Caroline Chisholm; Kylie Tennant on the future ... Like mirrors reflecting mirrors this book shows the precarious position of women in a country’s history. First published in 1938, the youngest...

The Getting of Wisdom The Getting of Wisdom is a novel by Australian novelist Henry Handel Richardson. It was first published in 1910, and has almost always been in print ever since. Henry Handel Richardson was the pseudonym of Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, a writer who was...

Joan Lindsay's classic novel Picnic at Hanging Rock is a subtle blend of mysterious and sinister events set in a period of Australian social life drawn with loving nostalgia. The final chapter of the novel was removed at the request of her publishers, creating a mystery to which thousands have begged...

‘Manning is a writer with a unique voice whose work is pushing the boundaries of contemporary short fiction.’ Paddy O’Reilly Mary Manning’s exciting debut collection includes a Goth clutching a homemade tart on a Melbourne tram, an old lady camping out on a medium strip and a wife...

Bush Studies is the timeless short stories, published in 1902 and Human Toll is the timeless novel, published in 1907, written by Barbara Baynton an Australian writer. “Boshy, coming out to harangue the chained dog, heard the tintin jangling of their billies and pannikins in their hasty,...

This collection of essays leads into the eccentric imagination of Gerald Murnane, one of the masters of contemporary Australian writing.

Australia is the planet’s sole island continent. This book argues that the uniqueness of this geography has shaped Australian history and culture, including its literature. Further, it shows how the fluctuating definition of the island continent throws new light on the relationship between islands...