Letter from the Poetry Editor
Welcome to the November 2013 issue of Transnational Literature. Anyone involved in the Australian poetry community will know that it has been a difficult time as two of our own award winning poets have been ‘outed’ as plagiarists. While this has caused poets from around the nation (and indeed, the world) great concern, poets have been reconsidering the idea of authentication, wondering can art ever truly be unique. Who owns a literary work? The author? The publisher? The reader? These questions are for every writer – not only poets – and they are especially true for editors, who are now expected to be the guardians of authenticity. I honestly do not know how to go about doing my job any differently than how I’ve been doing for the past eight years: have faith in the legitimacy of an author’s passionate desire to communicate. I hope that when you read our authors, you’ll feel that passion.
In this issue homage is paid to Ludwig Wittgenstein as a woman analyses love to the point of feeling it; Allen Ginsberg’s footsteps in India are retraced in a discovery of Indian influence on the Beat Poets; the Yellow Emperor of China c.2697-2597BCEresurfaces to apologise to one of his wives – passionate muses abound. Diane Bell pays tribute to the late Ngarrindjeri man Tom Treverrow, whose lifetime work was keeping the stories of the Old People alive and tirelessly fighting for reconciliation – memories of a passionate life. And of course there are book reviews: two, in fact, of reprinted Australian classics, reminding us that passion still lives in the pages of our paperback books. As a possible commentary on the displacement of cultural histories, identities, morals and ethics of transnational lives, the writing in this issue echoes the words of Ouyang Yu, who reminds us of the borderlessness of our spiritual landscapes and the passion it insists upon:
If one struggles and gets nowhere
Think of the sky that remains hollow and empty
Perhaps because it still hasn't begun charging a fee
To the passing planes
Enjoy, and may the passion be with you.
Heather Taylor Johnson |
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Articles |
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Christopher Anyokwu |
‘Looking Back is Looking Forward’: Towards a Theory of Tradition in Niyi Osundare’s Poetry |
Maureen Clark |
Storytelling Permutations in the Performance of Life Narrative: Betty Roland’s Caviar for Breakfast |
Alzo David-West |
An Inquiry of Intentions in Kim Hye-yŏng’s ‘First Meeting’: A North Korean Short Story in Korea Today (2007). |
David Leishman |
True Nations and Half People: Rewriting Nationalism in Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things |
Alan McCluskey |
Cosmopolitanism and Subversion of ‘Home’ in Caryl Phillips’s A Distant Shore |
Pramod Nayar |
Mobility and Anxious Cosmopolitanism: Jamaica Kincaid’s Among Flowers |
Angelia Poon |
Becoming a Global Subject: Language and the Body in Xiaolu Guo’s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers |
Constance J. Post |
American Self-Fashioning in Helen Foster Snow’s My China Years |
Gayathri Prabhu |
‘Figurations of the Spiritual Squalid in Allen Ginsberg’s Indian Journals: Transformation of India in Post-War Beat and American Imagination’ |
William H. Purcell |
‘How Shall I be Saved?’ The Salvation of Mrs Curren in Coetzee’s Age of Iron |
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Review Essay |
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Tom Bristow |
Fragmentary Introspective Observations: Animals, Emotions and Location in John Kinsella’s Poetry |
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* Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete Articles.* |
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Poetry |
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David Adès |
The Last Day of Summer |
Catherine Cole |
Leda |
Barbara Ford |
Age |
Jill Jones |
Black and White: Thirteen Ways |
Michelle Leber |
Empire of Wives |
Rachael Mead |
The Polar Tent |
Nathanael O'Reilly |
Your Funeral |
rob walker |
ashita / tomorrow |
Jena Woodhouse |
Fallen Kouros, Naxos |
Ouyang Yu |
The Great Chinese Loneliness |
Ouyang Yu |
The Measurement |
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* Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete Poetry.* |
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Prose Creative and Life Writing |
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Paul Anderson |
Revisiting Trauma: Writing, a ‘Novel’ Approach to Catharsis and Redemption |
Diane Bell |
Tom
Trevorrow: A Ngarrindjeri Man of High Degree |
Mary Byrne |
Old Wood Best to Burn |
Alzo David-West |
Mountains of Blood |
Elizabeth Hanscombe |
European History |
Kate Hayford |
The Valley of the Shadow |
John Farrell Kelly |
Things I Carry |
Lesley Synge |
Dr Shilling |
Reg Taylor |
Footnotes |
Jena Woodhouse |
The Mystery of Zitrou Street |
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* Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete Prose Creative and Life Writing.* |
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Book Reviews: Poetry |
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Nicholas Powell |
Review of Free Logic by Rachael Briggs |
Jorge Salavert |
Review of and then when the by Dan Disney |
Lesley Synge |
Review
of Contemporary Asian Australian Poets edited by Adam
Aitken, Kim Cheng Boey & Michelle Cahill |
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Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete Book
Reviews: Poetry.* |
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Book Reviews: Fiction |
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Michelle Austin |
Review of The Peastick Girl by Susan Hancock |
Sadiqa Beg |
Review of How to Stay Fair and Fare Well by Adnan Mahmutovic |
David Callahan |
Review of Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser |
Piri Eddy |
Review of Man of Letters by David Foster |
Etiennette Fennell |
Review of The Paraclete Conundrum by Emily Sutherland |
Rajyashree Khushu-Lahiri |
Review of Post-colonial: a recit by John Kinsella |
Anne Lauppe-Dunbar |
Review of Between Sky and Sea by Herz Bergner |
Jennifer Marquardt |
Review of The Sleeper's Almanac 8 edited by Zoe Dattner and Louise Swinn |
Jennifer Osborn |
Review of How to be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman |
Emily Sutherland |
Review of The First Week by Margaret Merrilees |
Emily Sutherland |
Review of Fairyland by Sumner Locke Elliott |
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Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete Book
Reviews: Fiction.* |
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Book Reviews: Life Writing |
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Nicholas Birns |
Review of Rose Boys by Peter Rose |
Kay Hart |
Review of Peace, Love and Khaki Socks by Kim Lock |
Eleni Pavlides |
Review of Mug Shots: A Memoir by Barry Oakley |
David Robjant |
Review of Here and Now: Letters 2008-2011 by Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee |
Jorge Salavert |
Review of Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala |
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Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete Book
Reviews: Life Writing.* |
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Book Reviews: History, Theory and Criticism |
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Helen Bones |
Review of From a Distant Shore by Bruce Bennett and Anne Pender |
Danielle Clode |
Review of Encyclopedia of Exploration: Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel Raymond J. Howgego |
Vivek Kumar Dwivedi |
Review of A House for Mr Biswas: Critical Perspectives edited by Meenakshi Bharat |
Alexander Hartwiger |
Review of An Aesthetic of Education in the Era of Globalization by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak |
Dymphna Lonergan |
Review of White Vanishing: Rethinking Australia’s Lost-in-the-Bush Myth by Elspeth Tilley |
Maja Milatovic |
Review of Entangled Subjects: Indigenous / Australian Cross-Cultures of Talk, Text and Modernity by Michèle Grossman |
Maja Milatovic |
Review of Presumed Incompetent: the Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia edited by Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs et al. |
Jennifer Osborn |
Review of The Burning Library: Our Great Novelists Lost and Found by Geordie Williamson |
Ashwinee Pendharkar |
Review of Reading New India by E. Dawson Varughese |
Christine Runnel |
Review of Flann O’Brien: Centenary Essays ed. Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper. Review of Contemporary Fiction, Fall 2011, Vol. 31, No. 3 |
Emily Sutherland |
Review of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry by Toby Davidson |
Christopher Ward |
Review of Shifting the Ground of Canadian Literary Studies edited by Smaro Kamboureli and Robert Zacharias |
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*
Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete Book
Reviews: History, Theory and Criticism.* |
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Contributors |
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