Australia in three books

BACKGROUND: Indigenous writer-scholars such as Jeanine Leane, Alison Whittaker and Evelyn Araluen have critiqued non-Indigenous engagement with Indigenous literature, both within academia and within the Australian literary sector. In her essay Cultural Rigour: First Nations Critical Culture for Sydney Review of Books, Leane (2023) writes “We…find ourselves in a time when there are a growing number of Blak literary scholars and critics, yet the dearth of Blak-on-Blak literary criticism published is striking." My research question is: ‘As an Indigenous writer-scholar, how do I ground my literary critique in Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing?’ CONTRIBUTION: ‘Australia in three books’ is an essay of literary criticism which engages with two books by Indigenous writers and one by a non-Indigenous writer of colour (Robert Walker’s Up, not Down, Mate! Thoughts from a Prison Cell (1981); Alexis Wright’s, Carpentaria (2006); Tracey Lien’s, All That’s Left Unsaid (2022)). It forms part of my ongoing research into how Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing can be grounded in both the production of Indigenous literature and Indigenous literary criticism. My essay ‘Australia in three books’ extends Leane’s call for “Blak-on-Blak literary criticism” and contributes a work of literary criticism by an Indigenous writer-scholar that engages with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous literature, grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. SIGNIFICANCE: Meanjin is one of Australia’s oldest literary journals. For over 80 years, Meanjin has fostered a rich and rigorous national conversation and has been a vehicle for important new work by Australian writers such as A. D. Hope, James McAuley, Douglas Stewart, Judith Wright, Patrick White, Randolph Stow, Frank Moorhouse, and Les Murray. My essay constitutes Meanjin’s regular ‘Australian in three books’ piece for the Autumn 2023 edition of the journal.