AustLit
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
'The focus is on the representations of indigenous cultures and customs in Katharine Susannah Prichard's short fiction (1929-1959) and in Sia Figiel's short story cycle Where We Once Belonged (1996). If the white Australian writer's narratives interpret the Aboriginal perspective, Samoan Sia Figiel, instead, tells her stories from the point of view of her own people. The paper aims at investigating the different narrative modes and emotional approaches of two writers, removed in place and time, prompted by diverse, but converging, reasons to denounce the effects of white colonization on native peoples. Prichard's commitment to socialism and realist writing determined her passionate involvement in the Aboriginal cause and her dealing with the problematic issues of exploitation and power structures. On the other hand, Figiel's indigenous voice, modulated through the typically South Pacific structure of su'ifefiloi, conveys a composite oral heritage meant to contrast western cultural impositions, and to assert the natives' right to tell their own stories in their own words.' (283)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 5 Oct 2010 12:00:52
199-210
Indigenous Representations in K. S Prichard and Sia Figiel's Short Fiction
Subjects:
- Coonardoo : The Well in the Shadow 1928 single work novel
- The Cooboo 1927 single work short story
- Happiness 1927 single work short story
- Marlene 1938 single work short story
- N'Goola 1956 single work short story
- Naninja and Janey 1952 single work short story
Export this record