The Reality of Being an Australian Writer #1

As a writer, we want our books, our stories, our worlds to have some kind of impact or influence on our readers. We want readers to be moved or inspired by our characters. As a rule, if a person decides to become a writer, one can assume that they've read something that has changed their life.

And that's true for me. I can think of several books that have had a profound affect on me. But today I'm writing about something that has perhaps a greater impact on my life, and as a consequence, the books I write and the worlds I create. That is Australia, our Great Southern Land.

As an Australian writer, Identity is important. The English-speaking world is dominated by American and English cultures, which don't always resonate strongly with Australians. For example, when I was twelve I remember lying amongst a grove of gum trees near a creek in my home town, considering the story of Saint George slaying the dragon, and asking myself what that had to do with me, how can that be relevant or part of my culture or identity as an Australian, millennia away from knights or dragons. And to this day I still shudder whenever I read the Americanised "mom" in any novel.

I knew that the story of St George was part of the folklore of England, where my father is from. You could say I went through a process of assessing these elements of foreign cultures and dismissing the ones that were too far removed from the world that I had grown up in. And I think it's fair to say that everyone does that to some extent, and continues doing that throughout their lives. But the more isolated you are, the greater the disparity becomes with your reality and that of the stories.

But there's much more to living in Australia than distance and isolation. The natural beauty of it's coasts and mountains, it's deserts and rain-forests, it's rivers and stone formations all mask it's harshness, it's underlying menace. If I'm ever asked "what books best sum up Australia?" I would say 'Wake in Fright' (Cook, 1961) 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' (Lindsay 1967) 'Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence' (Pilkington 1996) 'He Died With a Felafel in His Hand' (Birmingham 2000).

'Wake in Fright' is a wonderful yet terrifying tale, about the divide between city and country, about the harsh nature of life in these remote towns, presenting not only the country itself but those who live in it as menacing. 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' is a wonderful mystery set in rural Victoria, which I discussed in this list of books and movies that I love. It's sinister, it's brooding and it captures rural Australia so well. 'Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence' shows us one of the many horrors of Australia's colonisation, the forced removal of First Australian children from their families. The argument here is that the darkness and cruelty of Australia lays within the culture of it's white colonisers, and is hard to refute. 'He Died With a Felafel in his Hand' is a more comedic look at the country through stories of living in shared houses. As funny as it is, it's still grim.

Many great Australian writers have written Speculative Fiction; Isobelle Carmody, John Marsden, Sara Douglass and Garth Nix just to name a few. Personally, I don't read books just because the author is Australian. I often look into who they are a bit more if their books particularly grab me. But every now and then when reading a book, a uniquely Australian landmark will appear, or an Aussie slang expression or turn of phrase will be used, and then you just know the author is Australian. I am not going to go out and say that the best Speculative Fiction Writers are Australian, but I will say that we have an advantage. It's easy for us to write about post-apocalyptic wastelands or desolate alien planets, barren environments and the types of people who thrive amongst the hardships and the types of people who succumb to the horror of it all, because that is our reality.

Australia Day, and the Constant Spectre of Politics in Literature

So today is May 8. M8. Mate.

I am one of the minority who call it Australia Day.

Why? Because the official day (the 26th of January) celebrates the arrival of the First Fleet and the creation of the British colonies in Australia. And as you might imagine, the arrival of Europeans in a continent already populated by Aboriginals never works out well for the Aboriginal people, or First Australians in this case.
The First Australians refer to the 26th as 'Invasion Day' and given the shit that they've survived since, the inequality and racism that they continue to endure, I can't see anything worth celebrating on the 26th of January apart from the survival against all odds of Australia's Aboriginal people. So we need a new day that all Australians - whether their ancestors arrived here 20 years ago, 120 year ago or 80 thousand years ago - can celebrate what this land means to them. May 8? Why not.
So this blog is usually about writing. So why am I talking about politics? Because the two are intrinsically linked. As I wrote on twitter (here's the link) Books are Political - Books talk about our world, our experiences, our cultures and our beliefs. Even kid's books - 'The Lorax' for example. Books open reader's minds to new ways of looking at the world, of challenging conventional stereotypes, challenging social constructs like racism and sexism, and inspiring people to fight back against their oppressors.

This was something I always knew in the back of my head, but it didn't crystallise until a few years ago when my wife and I were strolling down the beautiful Unter den Linden in Berlin and visited the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (let's just call it the Humboldt University). This was where, on May 10th 1933 the Nazis burned over 20,000 books written by "degenerates" and opponents of the Third Reich. There is a monument in the square of Humboldt University to this moment, one of many moving monuments and reminders of the crimes of the Nazis. It's an empty bookshelf with a plaque saying "Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people."

So what does all of this mean? I guess Paul Kelly said it best with "From Little Things Big Things Grow" (which, appropriately, is a protest song about the Gurindji people's struggle for equality and land rights). A book can plant a small seed in the mind of it's reader. which can influence the way they see the world and their beliefs. And a small group of Australians who refuse to celebrate Australia Day on it's official day but instead celebrate on a different day* well that might catch on. I hope it does get bigger over the next few years. No-one can tell us when or how we celebrate what is important to us. That is a decision everybody can make for themselves, and there isn't a damn thing the Government can do. So Happy Australia Day.



*Obviously the "Invasion Day" protesters and thousands of people who have condemned the continual celebration of Australia Day on the 26th of January and the whole "Change the Date" movement have inspired people like myself to actively celebrate Australia Day on a different day is where this idea started.