Kirjahaku

Visitors to the Red Centre come looking for the real Australia. What they find is both beautiful and disturbing: wilderness, desire, an ancient philosophy of home, and the confusing countenance of the Australian frontier, a meeting place of black and white, ancient and modern.Songlines and Fault Lines explores the stories of six epic walks that shaped a nation: a journey of Aboriginal Dreamtime ancestors; John Stuart's south-north trek across the continent; anthropologist TGH Strehlow's childhood journey down the Finke River; conservationist Arthur Groom's reimagining of the country's heart as tourist play-ground; Bruce Chatwin's seminal travel text about the Centre, and Eleanor Hogan's portrait of Alice Springs, a troubled town.Retracing the legendary pathways and stories of the Australian centre, Glenn Morrison finds new answers to age-old queries.

Writing Home explores the literary representation of Australian places by those who have walked them. In particular, it examines how Aboriginal and settler narratives of walking have shaped portrayals of Australia's Red Centre and consequently ideas of nation and belonging.Central Australia has long been characterised as a frontier, the supposed divide between black and white, ancient and modern. But persistently representing it in this way is preventing Australians from re-imagining this internationally significant region as home. Writing Home argues that the frontier no longer adequately describes Central Australia, and that the Aboriginal songlines make a significant but under-acknowledged contribution to Australian discourses of hybridity, belonging and home. Drawing on anthropology, cultural theory, journalism, politics and philosophy, the book traces shifting perceptions of Australian place and space since precolonial times, through six recounted walking journeys of the Red Centre.

Writing Home explores the literary representation of Australian places by those who have walked them. In particular, it examines how Aboriginal and settler narratives of walking have shaped portrayals of Australia's Red Centre and consequently ideas of nation and belonging.Central Australia has long been characterised as a frontier, the supposed divide between black and white, ancient and modern. But persistently representing it in this way is preventing Australians from re-imagining this internationally significant region as home. Writing Home argues that the frontier no longer adequately describes Central Australia, and that the Aboriginal songlines make a significant but under-acknowledged contribution to Australian discourses of hybridity, belonging and home. Drawing on anthropology, cultural theory, journalism, politics and philosophy, the book traces shifting perceptions of Australian place and space since precolonial times, through six recounted walking journeys of the Red Centre.