AustLit

'Tasmania holds a special place in the French imaginary, as a symbol of radical otherness, due in no small part to its location far away from France, at the end of the earth. This essay traces the development of Tasmania as both a place of utopian desire and a site of dystopian suffering in the French imaginary, from its earliest associations with Terra Australis Incognita through the first explorers’ landings to today’s interpretations of the island. Within this continuum of utopian travel tales, the essay presents a singular narrative, La Grenouille dans le billabong [A Frog in the Billabong] by Marie-Paule Leroux published in 2004, as an example of how Tasmania remains a utopian construction for the French traveller to the island. Leroux’s intercultural adventure is analysed according to common tropes of utopian writing and thinking, linked to place, people and politics, to demonstrate the contemporary currency of le rêve tasmanien [the Tasmanian dream] for the French.'

Source: Abstract.