Re-Imagining Indigenous Australia through the Short Story

Heat and Light* by Ellen van Neerven

Bibliographic Data

ID8892016
AuthorsHelena Kadmos (0000-0002-7834-1695, corresponding author)
Year2018
Publication date2018-10-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Literary Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-9697 • E-ISSN: 1837-6479
PublisherAustralian Literary Studies (PUBLISHER • AU)
DOI10.20314/als.ef818cfc89
OpenAlexW2896738044
LanguageEN
Citations received3

In 1998 Michelle Grossmanâ s overview of Indigenous womenâ s writing explored the significant contribution that life writing had made to the countryâ s literatures and pondered where younger authors might take Indigenous writing in the twenty-first century. This essay examines the work of one such writer, Ellen van Neerven, whose award-winning collection of stories, Heat and Light (2014), is a work of fiction that draws in part on personal and family stories to offer heterogeneous representations of individuals and families, lovers and friends. Part short story cycle, part long story, part story collection, the text resists easy categorisation. Within its tripartite structure, the sixteen stories are narrated in radically different ways to draw on themes explored before in Australian Aboriginal literature, such as the importance of extended family and belonging, in sometimes new ways, such as through a futuristic vision of Australia. Through a close reading of the text, and discussion that incorporates comments made by Neerven herself, this article suggests that through its varied structures, genres and styles, Heat and Light re-imagines and celebrates the fluid and diverse nature of contemporary Indigeneity

Aesthetics · Art · Grossman · Indigenous · Life writing · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Reading (process · Sociology · Visual arts · History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Short Stories in Global Literature