Provocations

‘I’d like to engage in some offensive provincialism, examining different borders, the literary tick gates, and ask if anything exists beyond Sydney or Melbourne.’

My activism has been a way of protecting my creativity; it is a way of nourishing and reviving what withers, interiorly, when we are silenced by ideologies, or when we become centred ourselves within cultural frames.

The way nations quantify and code identity is enmeshed in many ‘invented traditions’ but of course these also operate at a semi-conscious level and can be inflamed very quickly, as we are witnessing right now.

For writers who choose to write (or continue to write) in their first language after migration language takes on new meanings and new functions.

A battle is taking place; a border war over who can be designated as legitimate agents in the literary field.

Unvarnished ‘truth’ in literature is of course only relative to the position of the speaker and often used as a bludgeoning tool.