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
'Anguli Ma is the central figure in a traditional Buddhist folktale, a deranged killer who wears his victims’ fingers in a garland around his neck. Chi Vu presents him as a menacing abattoir worker who carries bloody chunks of meat home to his lodgings in plastic bags, in this suburban Gothic tale set in 1980s Melbourne, when the flight of Vietnamese refugees to Australia was at its height.' [From the publisher's website]
Exhibitions
8875768
8857854
Notes
-
Dedication: for James
-
Epigraph:
The truly present moment has no connection whatever
with the past or the future - it is independent of what
has gone before or what will follow - it is a different
dimension to the flowing of time.
- V.R. Dhiravamsa, The Way of Non-Attachment
It is on disaster that good fortune perches.
It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches.
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
If You See the Buddha in Suburbia Kill Him : Anguli Ma : A Gothic Tale
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Like an Australian Writer 2021; -
Australia in Three Books
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 77 no. 3 2018; (p. 17)
— Review of Anguli Ma : A Gothic Tale 2012 single work novella ; Foreign Correspondence 1998 single work autobiography ; The Lucky Country 1964 single work non-fiction'Escaping from suburbia is the story I've heard many people tell over the years, but it's never been a story that I relate to. For me, the suburbs represent refuge, even precious culture, as they do for many others. After all, the mass migrations of the twentieth century brought with them the multicultural transformations of countless Australian suburbs. So where I feel most at home is Sydney's south-western suburbs; at home as I could ever feel in Australia, anyway.' (Introduction)
-
Australian Writing and the Contemporary : Are We There Yet?
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies Review , April vol. 22 no. 1 2016; (p. 243–268) 'Australia’s geographical location (within ‘Asia’)—seen as a negative into the twenty-first century when the nation defined itself as culturally and aspirationally linked to the major Euro-American metropolitan cultural centres (the ‘West’)—must now be reevaluated. After two hundred years of white settlement and of turning its back on the region in which it is located, some Australian writers are writing texts that illuminate an aspect of Australian literature that is in transition, becoming, by definition, in, of, and with the region as well as in, of, and with present time. Art historian Terry Smith’s theory of the three currents of contemporary art, particularly the third current, suggests a new paradigm, a potential break from modernism, and a different kind of entanglement and interconnection in a world that is witnessing shifts in world power, voluntary and involuntary mass movements of people, and real time global communication technologies. Adrian Snodgrass and David Coyne’s application of hermeneutical theory to the architectural design studio via the metaphor of excursion and return illuminates some imaginative intersections, understandings and energies in three texts by Australian authors—Michelle De Kretser, Chi Vu and Jennifer Mackenzie. In Smith’s terms too, the texts perform original leaps of the imagination in their diversity, freshness, and ability to surprise and invite questions about literature’s potential to stir up prior understandings and invite new ways of being in the present. In terms of Giorgio Agamben’s definition of the contemporary, the three texts bring the reader to a plurality and intercultural connectedness that we have yet to fully recognise and live. They represent a line of flight towards a literary imaginary in Australian writing that is contemporary, locally grounded, but also regionally and globally entangled. ' (Publication abstract) -
Untitled
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , May vol. 5 no. 2 2013;
— Review of Anguli Ma : A Gothic Tale 2012 single work novella -
A Year of Experimentation: Australian Fiction Moving On
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 58 no. 1 2013; (p. 92-108)
-
Short and Sweet
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 7-8 July 2012; (p. 18-19)
— Review of Wild and Woolley : A Publishing Memoir 2011 single work autobiography ; The Recluse 2012 single work biography ; Anguli Ma : A Gothic Tale 2012 single work novella -
Giramondo Shorts
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Arena Magazine , August - September no. 119 2012; (p. 51-52)
— Review of Anguli Ma : A Gothic Tale 2012 single work novella ; Giramondo Shorts 2011 series - publisher criticism -
Untitled
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , May vol. 5 no. 2 2013;
— Review of Anguli Ma : A Gothic Tale 2012 single work novella -
[Untitled]
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 72 no. 3 2012; (p. 229-234)
— Review of The Recluse 2012 single work biography ; Anguli Ma : A Gothic Tale 2012 single work novella ; Street to Street 2012 single work novella ; Wild and Woolley : A Publishing Memoir 2011 single work autobiography -
Australia in Three Books
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 77 no. 3 2018; (p. 17)
— Review of Anguli Ma : A Gothic Tale 2012 single work novella ; Foreign Correspondence 1998 single work autobiography ; The Lucky Country 1964 single work non-fiction'Escaping from suburbia is the story I've heard many people tell over the years, but it's never been a story that I relate to. For me, the suburbs represent refuge, even precious culture, as they do for many others. After all, the mass migrations of the twentieth century brought with them the multicultural transformations of countless Australian suburbs. So where I feel most at home is Sydney's south-western suburbs; at home as I could ever feel in Australia, anyway.' (Introduction)
-
A Year of Experimentation: Australian Fiction Moving On
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 58 no. 1 2013; (p. 92-108) -
Australian Writing and the Contemporary : Are We There Yet?
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies Review , April vol. 22 no. 1 2016; (p. 243–268) 'Australia’s geographical location (within ‘Asia’)—seen as a negative into the twenty-first century when the nation defined itself as culturally and aspirationally linked to the major Euro-American metropolitan cultural centres (the ‘West’)—must now be reevaluated. After two hundred years of white settlement and of turning its back on the region in which it is located, some Australian writers are writing texts that illuminate an aspect of Australian literature that is in transition, becoming, by definition, in, of, and with the region as well as in, of, and with present time. Art historian Terry Smith’s theory of the three currents of contemporary art, particularly the third current, suggests a new paradigm, a potential break from modernism, and a different kind of entanglement and interconnection in a world that is witnessing shifts in world power, voluntary and involuntary mass movements of people, and real time global communication technologies. Adrian Snodgrass and David Coyne’s application of hermeneutical theory to the architectural design studio via the metaphor of excursion and return illuminates some imaginative intersections, understandings and energies in three texts by Australian authors—Michelle De Kretser, Chi Vu and Jennifer Mackenzie. In Smith’s terms too, the texts perform original leaps of the imagination in their diversity, freshness, and ability to surprise and invite questions about literature’s potential to stir up prior understandings and invite new ways of being in the present. In terms of Giorgio Agamben’s definition of the contemporary, the three texts bring the reader to a plurality and intercultural connectedness that we have yet to fully recognise and live. They represent a line of flight towards a literary imaginary in Australian writing that is contemporary, locally grounded, but also regionally and globally entangled. ' (Publication abstract) -
If You See the Buddha in Suburbia Kill Him : Anguli Ma : A Gothic Tale
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Like an Australian Writer 2021;
Awards
Last amended 6 Mar 2015 09:55:41
Settings:
- Melbourne, Victoria,
- 1980s
Export this record
