| Chapter : | Introduction |
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The fracturing and remaking of language is a continuous process; it is a driving force of Castro’s creativity.
The difficulty of Castro’s writing has proved a stumbling block for readers and publishers. In 1988 Castro felt able to rejoice in the blossoming of publications by migrant writers in Australia. He wrote: ‘What is being written in Australia is exciting because it is beginning to subvert assumptions about literature itself, enabling the body of ideas to brush against the very ephemeral texture of language without the necessity to remain economically viable’ (‘Necessary Idiocy’ 31). How different things seemed a little over a decade later when the need to appeal to a large, largely undiscriminating market dictated publishing trends. In 2005 James Ley published an important essay in Australian Book Review in which he addressed the issues of difficult writing, publishing expectations, and the latest perceived crisis afflicting Australian literature: declining readership. Ley argued that fewer people were reading Australian fiction because readers were no longer being encouraged to take on challenging texts. He argued: ‘The problem would seem to be less one of latent talent…than of cultivating readers who are prepared to take on a challenging, difficult novel. This may have something to do with our timid publishing culture, but it is also part of a broader cultural failure to attend to literature as a representative, ironic art form’ (33). Ley went on to point out that there was