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This is the first sustained study of the formal particularities of works by Bruce Pascoe, Kim Scott, Tara June Winch, and Alexis Wright. Drawing on a rich theoretical framework that includes approaches to relationality by Aboriginal thinkers, Edouard Glissant, and Jean-Luc Nancy, and recent work in New Formalism and narrative theory, the book illustrates how they use a broad range of narrative techniques to mediate, negotiate, and temporarily create networks of relations that interlink all elements of the universe. Through this focus on relationality, Aboriginal writing gains both local and global significance. Locally, these narratives assert Indigenous sovereignty by staging an unbroken interrelatedness of people and their land. Globally, they intervene into current discourses about humanity's relationship with the natural environment, urging readers to acknowledge our interrelatedness with and dependence on the land that sustains us.
List of contents
Introduction: Towards a Poetics and Politics of Relationality
Chapter 1: Non-Human (Narrative) Authority in Bruce Pascoe’s Earth
Chapter 2: Place-Based Storytelling in Kim Scott’s Benang and That Deadman Dance
Chapter 3: Precarious Relations in Tara June Winch’s Swallow the Air
Chapter 4: Non-Egocentric Relations and Ambiguity in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria
Chapter 5: Travelling Narratives and Community in Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book
Chapter 6: Stories, Language, and Sharing in Kim Scott’s Taboo
Conclusion: Experiencing Relationality
About the author
Dorothee Klein is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of English Literatures and Cultures at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. She has published articles on Aboriginal life-writing, contemporary Aboriginal fiction and short story cycles, and (cognitive) narratology.
Summary
This is the first sustained study of the politics of form in contemporary Australian Aboriginal fiction. Poetics and Politics of Relationality investigates how narratives by Kim Scott, Alexis Wright, Bruce Pascoe, and Tara June Winch employ formal devices to emphasise the significance of relations with the environment.
