Chapter : | Introduction: Australian Literature as Postcolonial Literature |
Introduction
Australian Literature
as Postcolonial Literature
Nathanael O'Reilly
Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature presents thirteen new essays that address many of the numerous ways in which Australian literature is postcolonial and can be read using postcolonial reading strategies.1 The collection addresses a wide variety of Australian texts produced from the colonial period through to the present, including works by, among others, Henry Lawson, Rolf Boldrewood, Miles Franklin, Xavier Herbert, Jack Lindsay, Patrick White, Francis Webb, James McAuley, Judith Wright, David Malouf, Elizabeth Jolley, Peter Carey, Richard Flanagan, Rodney Hall, Andrew McGahan, Kate Grenville, Tony Birch, Kim Scott, Alexis Wright, and Melissa Lucashenko. The chapters focus on works by Indigenous authors and writers of European descent and examine numerous postcolonial issues, including hybridity, first contact, resistance, appropriation, race relations, language usage, indigeneity, immigration/invasion, land rights and ownership, national identity, marginalization,