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'Australia is deeply enmeshed with the myth of the bush, which is nevertheless an elusive place to describe. It might be rural, even hilly, terrain not very far from the coast; it might be flatter and dryer and further inland, where it can also be called the outback; it can even be, and in some sense centrally is, the huge arid spaces of the continental centre that have been collectively named the 'never-never', regions that seem beyond time. Essentially, the bush is not urban, though it may contain occasional far-separated small cohabitation. What it is not is a city or a town. Yet by the late nineteenth century, when the bush myth developed, already two-thirds of Australians lived in large urban areas, and theirs is now a very highly urbanised country: the bush myth is not in reality based on a nationally dominant formation.' (Introduction)
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Last amended 30 Aug 2023 09:32:41
Did Matilda Want to Waltz? : Fiction before the Bush Myth
