Reckoning with the Past

Ashley Barnwell is Ashworth Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Joseph Cummins has a PhD in Literary Studies from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and serves on the board of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature.

Introduction

1. Dredging Up Family Secrets – Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and Richard Flanagan’s Death of a River Guide

2. Confronting the ‘Double Fold of Silence’ – Kim Scott and Hazel Brown’s Kayang & Me and Sally Morgan’s My Place

3. Belonging Across Generations – Brian Castro’s Birds of Passage and Shanghai Nights, and Alex Miller’s The Ancestor Game

4. Returning to Homelands – Christos Tsiolkas’ Dead Europe and Christopher Koch’s The Many-Coloured Land: A Return to Ireland

5. Listening to the Ghosts of the Past – Andrew McGahan’s The White Earth

Conclusion

Bibliography