AustLit

'Simone Lazaroo’s novel Sustenance (2010) explores Australian identity and its positioning of the Asian other, using the touristic setting of Bali to evidence the process of othering that takes place in Australian society, where acceptance of the other remains superficial and alterity is maintained. Through a close reading of Sustenance’s culinary extracts, this article argues that consumptive practices and the layering of stereotypes are used by Lazaroo to critically portray Australia’s neocolonial relation to Asia as well as to evidence the downsides of the consumptive celebration of difference which blinds people to the realities of racism and intolerance. It explores how world views are transmitted through foodways, and how this feature of food is used in conflicting ways: by the local population and the tourists to generate interactions that rely on the mutual essentialization of cultural differences, and by the main character to underscore commonalities and to facilitate cross-cultural understanding.'  (Publication abstract)

'Literature can function as a lens through which social values are mediated. This characteristic acquires particular relevance in the case of children’s and young adult literatures as the world-view of the young readership is especially susceptible to the ideologies articulated in literary works. This article investigates the critical depiction of Australian multicultural society in Alice Pung’s novel Laurinda (2014). By analysing the role of food in both the novel’s plot and its figurative language, the article explores the novel’s illustration of the alienation of Asian minorities that is triggered by instances of overt and casual racism. The tangibility of foodways enables the illustration of how a lack of interaction between distinct social classes and ethnic groups is conducive to an absence of cross-group understanding that contributes towards the conflation of class, cultural and racial differences and prevents the achievement of the multicultural dream.'  (Publication abstract)