Page - 231 - in Über Bücher reden - Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften

© 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