The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel

Book excerpt: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel is an authoritative volume on the Australian novel by more than forty experts in the field of Australian literary studies, drawn from within Australia and abroad. Essays cover a wide range of types of novel writing and publishing from the earliest colonial period through to the present day. The international dimensions of publishing Australian fiction are also considered as are the changing contours of criticism of the novel in Australia. Chapters examine colonial fiction, women's writing, Indigenous novels, popular genre fiction, historical fiction, political novels, and challenging novels on identity and belonging from recent decades, not least the major rise of Indigenous novel writing. Essays focus on specific periods of major change in Australian history or range broadly across themes and issues that have influenced fiction across many years and in many parts of the country.