Belinda Wheeler 
A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature 

This international collection of eleven original essays on Australian Aboriginal literature provides a comprehensive critical companion that contextualizes the Aboriginal canon for scholars, researchers, students, and general readers.






Australian Aboriginal literature, once relegated to the margins of Australian literary studies, now receives both national and international attention. Not only has the number of published texts by contemporary Australian Aboriginals risen sharply, but scholars and publishers have also recently begun recovering earlier published and unpublished Indigenous works. Writing by Australian Aboriginals is making a decisive impression in fiction, autobiography, biography, poetry, film, drama, and music, and has recently been anthologized in Oceania and North America.

Until now, however, there has been no comprehensive critical companion that contextualizes the Aboriginal canon for scholars, researchers, students, and general readers. This international collection of eleven original essays fills this gap by discussing crucial aspects of Australian Aboriginal literature and tracing the development of Aboriginalliteracy from the oral tradition up until today, contextualizing the work of Aboriginal artists and writers and exploring aspects of Aboriginal life writing such as obstacles toward publishing, questions of editorial control (orthe lack thereof), intergenerational and interracial collaborations combining oral history and life writing, and the pros and cons of translation into European languages.


Contributors: Katrin Althans, Maryrose Casey, Danica Cerce, Stuart Cooke, Paula Anca Farca, Michael R. Griffiths, Oliver Haag, Martina Horakova, Jennifer Jones, Nicholas Jose, Andrew King, Jeanine Leane, Theodore F. Sheckels, Belinda Wheeler.


Belinda Wheeler is Associate Professor of English at Claflin University, Orangeburg, SC.

Table of Content

Foreword – Nichola Jose

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Emerging Canon – Belinda Wheeler

Chronology

Indigenous Life Writing: Rethinking Poetics and Practice – Michael R. Griffiths

Australian Aboriginal Life Writers and Their Editors: Cross-Cultural Collaboration, Authorial Intention, and the Impact of Editorial Choices – Jennifer Jones

Contemporary Life Writing: Inscribing Double Voice in Intergenerational Collaborative Life-Writing Projects – Martina Horakova

European Translations of Australian Aboriginal Texts – Danica Cerce and Oliver Haag

Tracing a Trajectory from Songpoetry to Contemporary Aboriginal Poetry – Stuart Cooke

Rites/Rights/Writes of Passage: Identity Construction in Australian Aboriginal Young Adult Fiction – Jeanine Leane

Humor in Contemporary Aboriginal Adult Fiction – Paula Anca Farca

White Shadows: The Gothic Tradition in Australian Aboriginal Literature – Katrin Althans

Bold, Black, and Brilliant: Aboriginal Australian Drama – Maryrose Casey

The ‘Stolen Generations’ in Feature Film: The Approach of Aboriginal Director Rachel Perkins and Others – Theodore F. Scheckels

A History of Popular Indigenous Music – Andrew King

Notes on the Contributors

Note on the Cover Artist

Index