Despite the stereotype of post-colonial Australian society as secular and irreligious, a radical concept of the sacred, located in place, has pervaded its literature. Australian writers again and again break away from received, orthodox notions of religious experience, imagining a transformed post-colonial sacred in Australia.

For Indigenous and non-Indigenous societies 'place' has had a particularly post-colonial function in contesting imperial cultural forms, including received forms of religion. 'Horizonal' is the concept of space dominated by an apparently infinite horizon. This book reveals, in its discussion of contemporary literature, an Australian sacred emerging from the material, proximate and intimate experiences of the everyday. -- Back cover.