AustLit logo
image of person or book cover 5588182251532014641.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website
y separately published work icon The White Woman single work   novel   historical fiction  
Issue Details: First known date: 1994... 1994 The White Woman
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Latest Issues

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This is the story of a search for the lost white woman in the wilds of Gippsland, Victoria in 1846 - a quest in defence of virtue and "civilised" values. It is also a story of fear, history, myth and the power of the imagination.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Exhibitions

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Untapped , 2021 .
      image of person or book cover 1121556107500242656.png
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 1v.p.
      ISBN: 9781922749468
Alternative title: La femme blanche : roman
Language: French
    • Arles,
      c
      France,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Actes Sud ,
      1996 .
      image of person or book cover 250210304160639512.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 178p.p.
      ISBN: 9782742707447, 2742707441

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

y separately published work icon The Mabo Turn in Australian Fiction Geoff Rodoreda , Oxford : Peter Lang , 2017 13852561 2017 multi chapter work criticism

'This is the first in-depth, broad-based study of the impact of the Australian High Court’s landmark Mabo decision of 1992 on Australian fiction. More than any other event in Australia’s legal, political and cultural history, the Mabo judgement – which recognised indigenous Australians’ customary native title to land – challenged previous ways of thinking about land and space, settlement and belonging, race and relationships, and nation and history, both historically and contemporaneously. While Mabo’s impact on history, law, politics and film has been the focus of scholarly attention, the study of its influence on literature has been sporadic and largely limited to examinations of non-Aboriginal novels.

'Now, a quarter of a century after Mabo, this book takes a closer look at nineteen contemporary novels – including works by David Malouf, Alex Miller, Kate Grenville, Thea Astley, Tim Winton, Michelle de Kretser, Richard Flanagan, Alexis Wright and Kim Scott – in order to define and describe Australia’s literary imaginary as it reflects and articulates post-Mabo discourse today. Indeed, literature’s substantial engagement with Mabo’s cultural legacy – the acknowledgement of indigenous people’s presence in the land, in history, and in public affairs, as opposed to their absence – demands a re-writing of literary history to account for a “Mabo turn” in Australian fiction. ' (Publication summary)

The Darkest Aspect : Mabo and Liam Davison’s The White Woman Geoff Rodoreda , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Zeitschrift Für Australienstudien , no. 30 2016; (p. 44-60)

In 1962, Douglas Pike, the Professor of History at the Australian National University, published a book called Australia: The Quiet Continent. As the title indicates, Pike describes a land only awakened from its historical slumber by the arrival of Europeans at the end of the eighteenth century. Aboriginal participation in the nation’s story is quieted in Pike’s work. Aboriginal people are barely mentioned in 233 pages of text, other than being referred to as “native people [held] in stone-age bondage” (1) or as “primitive food-gatherers [who] were no match for the white invader” (36). Passages stating that “the Australian communities took shape as peaceful outposts of British civilization” (3), ignore or suppress any suggestion that the land was taken from Aboriginal people by force. This was entirely in keeping with the fashion of Australian historical narrative for the time.' (Introduction)

'Terror Nullius' : Contemporary Australian Frontier Fictions in the Classroom Russell West-Pavlov , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian and New Zealand Literature 2016; (p. 67-76)

‘A fire hydrant on a street corner in Carlton, in inner-city Melbourne, carries an ephemeral stencilled graffito : ‘terror nullius.’ The graffito is a pun on the legal doctrine of terra nullius, Latin for ‘nobody’s land,’ which dictated that any territory found by a colonizing power could be occupied and claimed if it was deemed not to be inhabited by prior occupants. Typically it was deployed by the British, for example, in a number of rulings in the mid- to late – nineteenth century, (Reynolds, 'Frontier History' 4) to legitimize their colonial conquests around the so-called New World, in particular in Australia. Its hegemony as a legal fiction was ended by the Australian High Court’s historic Mabo ruling of 1992, which deemed that so-called native title, that is, Indigenous possession of Australia, had existed before and after British occupation and the declaration of sovereignty in 1788 (Butt, Eagleson, and Lane).’ (Introduction)

Border-Crossings : By Way of Introduction Russell West-Pavlov , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Border Crossings : Narrative and Demarcation in Postcolonial Literatures and Media 2012; (p. 9-12)
Invasion and Pathology : Australia, Mabo, McGahan and Malouf Russell West-Pavlov , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Imaginary Antipodes : Essays on Contemporary Australian Literature and Culture 2011; (p. 101-113)

— Appears in: Border Crossings : Narrative and Demarcation in Postcolonial Literatures and Media 2012; (p. 17-29)
'...this section addresses what was, symbolically, at least, undoubtedly the most significant event in the recent history of indigenous Australia: the 1992 High Court 'Mabo' decision, which confirmed the ongoing validity of native title. Tragically Mabo appears to have had relatively little impact on Australian culture (just as it has had only a minor impact on the real practices of restoration of indigenous land ownership). One of the few literary texts to have directly registered the invisible seismic reverberations of Mabo was Andrew McGahan's The White Earth (2004) which this chapter analyzes in terms of the text's domination metaphor, that of disease.' (From author's introduction, Imaginary Antipodes : Essays on Contemporary Australian Literature and Culture 13)
Views of an Invasion Andrew Dowling , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: Social Alternatives , April vol. 14 no. 2 1995; (p. 64-65)

— Review of Bridge of Triangles John Muk Muk Burke , 1994 single work novel ; The White Woman Liam Davison , 1994 single work novel
Dark Places in a Country Built on Lies Larissa Behrendt , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 15 October 1994; (p. 11A)

— Review of The White Woman Liam Davison , 1994 single work novel ; Mutant Message Down Under Marlo Morgan , 1991 single work novel
Elusive Tale Lingers in Consciousness Carmel Bird , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 6 November 1994; (p. 7)

— Review of The White Woman Liam Davison , 1994 single work novel
Forecasts Claire Mills , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Bookseller & Publisher , August vol. 74 no. 1050 1994; (p. 39)

— Review of The White Woman Liam Davison , 1994 single work novel
Read All About It Diane Carlyle , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 7 December 1994; (p. 30)

— Review of The White Woman Liam Davison , 1994 single work novel ; The Ancient Guild of Tycoons Matthew Condon , 1994 single work novel
y separately published work icon The Paradoxical Taboo : White Female Characters and Interracial Relationships in Australian Fiction Carolyn Hughes , Brisbane : 2004 Z1180791 2004 single work thesis The thesis looks at the way white female characters and interracial relationships are represented in Australian fiction by white Australian writers.
Australian Literature and the Making of History Paul Sharrad , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Lemuria , Winter vol. 1 no. 1 2006; (p. 55-74)
Sharrad in this essay discusses a wide range of Australian fiction with attention to its negotiations with history. Sharrad says that the struggle of the writers he examines 'has been both to recover and reject history' (72-73). Through fiction, history is brought to life but 'lest we become trapped by the tyranny of the past, the writer has also to perform literary exorcisms that will free the future from the hauntings which currently still visit the Australian national present' (73).
'White Aboriginals' : White Australian Literary Responses to the Challenge of Indigenous Histories Russell West-Pavlov , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Imaginary Antipodes : Essays on Contemporary Australian Literature and Culture 2011; (p. 71-86)
'Chapter 4 examines the phenomenon of the 'white Aboriginal,' a putative figure of cultural synthesis as proclaimed in Germaine Greer's maverick manifesto Whitefella Jump Up (2003). However, in texts such as Patrick White's A Fringe of Leaves (1976) and David Malouf's Remembering Babylon (1993), Liam Davison's The White Woman (1994), and Stephen Gray's The Artist is a Thief (2001), the 'white Aborigine' figure progressively modulates into a sign of appropriation rather than of reconciliation.' (From author's introduction, 12)
Invasion and Pathology : Australia, Mabo, McGahan and Malouf Russell West-Pavlov , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Imaginary Antipodes : Essays on Contemporary Australian Literature and Culture 2011; (p. 101-113)

— Appears in: Border Crossings : Narrative and Demarcation in Postcolonial Literatures and Media 2012; (p. 17-29)
'...this section addresses what was, symbolically, at least, undoubtedly the most significant event in the recent history of indigenous Australia: the 1992 High Court 'Mabo' decision, which confirmed the ongoing validity of native title. Tragically Mabo appears to have had relatively little impact on Australian culture (just as it has had only a minor impact on the real practices of restoration of indigenous land ownership). One of the few literary texts to have directly registered the invisible seismic reverberations of Mabo was Andrew McGahan's The White Earth (2004) which this chapter analyzes in terms of the text's domination metaphor, that of disease.' (From author's introduction, Imaginary Antipodes : Essays on Contemporary Australian Literature and Culture 13)
Border-Crossings : By Way of Introduction Russell West-Pavlov , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Border Crossings : Narrative and Demarcation in Postcolonial Literatures and Media 2012; (p. 9-12)
Last amended 6 Dec 2021 16:20:51
X