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© 2021 V&R unipress, Brill Deutschland GmbH
ISBN Print: 9783847113232 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737013239
MaggieNolan /RobertClarke /RebekahBrown
ReadingFiction,TalkingReconciliation:
AustralianBookClubs,BookTalk and thePoliticsofHistory
Abstract
Thispaperreportsonresearch into thereceptionofAustralianhistorical fictionamongst
bookclubreaders.Weconsideragroupofnovelsweterm fictionsof reconciliation.Given
their popularity, the controversies they have incited, and their foregrounding of con-
temporary concerns aboutAustralianhistory and race relations, thesenovels provide an
opportunity to explore the legacies of colonial violence, the role of reading in thinking
throughthese legacies, andhowbookclubsprovideaspace forcritical reflection through
vernacular criticism.
Sinceat least thepublicationof JaniceRadway’sReading theRomance:Women,
Patriarchy, and Popular Literature in 1984, literary scholars in the English-
speakingworldhavebeen interested in thepracticesof so-calledordinaryor lay
readers.This interest invernacularcriticismhasgrownoverthelast twentyyears
withthestudyofbookgroups.Central tosuchinterest isaconcernwiththeway
book group readers engagewith literature andwith other readers to reflect on
often quite challenging issues—the impacts of social change, history, politics,
andeconomyon theirdaily lives andcommunities.
AsAustralian postcolonial literary critics, we have been concernedwith the
wayreadersuseliteraturetothinkandworkthroughthechallengesof livingina
culture situated in the aftermathof colonialism.Webecame interested inbook
clubs and the social practices of reading in part as a response to a publishing
phenomenonwehave termed elsewhere fictions of reconciliation1.Thoughnot
exclusivelyhistorical, fictionsof reconciliationarenovelspublished inAustralia
after 2000 that explicitly address the legacies of the European invasion of the
Australian continent after 1788, and the enduring impacts of dispossession,
assimilation,andgenocideonIndigenousAustralians.Publishedinthewakeofa
decade-long government-sponsored program of intercultural reconciliation,
fictions of reconciliation include Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, The Lieu-
1 Nolan/Clarke2011.
Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0
Über Bücher reden
Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften
- Title
- Über Bücher reden
- Subtitle
- Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften
- Author
- Doris Moser
- Editor
- Claudia Dürr
- Publisher
- V&R unipress
- Date
- 2021
- Language
- German
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-7370-1323-9
- Size
- 15.5 x 23.2 cm
- Pages
- 262
- Category
- Lehrbücher