AustLit

'What makes an “Australian” fairy tale? Does this designation refer to marvelous narratives with a distinctly Australian bush setting? Or to fiction by Australian authors that is set in a European “once upon a time”? Is such a categorization as the Australian fairy tale even possible? Maurice Saxby once referred to early Australian examples of the genre as “so-called fairy tales,” dismissive of their limited connection with folk traditions (46). However, the literary fairy tale is not always derived from European, or folk, tradition. Moreover, recent attention to decolonizing fairy-tale studies and the fairy-tale canon has emphasized “the specifics of distinct cultures” and has called for resistance to “the twin urges to universalize traditional narratives at the expense of their specific historical and sociocultural contexts and to generalize the European fairy tale as an ahistorical global genre”. While British settlers made attempts to replicate European tale tradition in Australian settings, the fairy tales they produced could never precisely mirror those that evolved through centuries of oral and literary telling. In recent decades this uniqueness—once perceived as a failing—has become a strength of Australian fairy-tale texts. In this special issue, literary scholars and creative writing practitioners examine the way the genre was transplanted to take root in Australia through the process of white settler colonialism and how it has developed to take on its own inflections and possibilities as it has been adopted and adapted by a diverse range of writers, artists, and filmmakers.'  (Introduction)

'During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, non-Indigenous authors retold Indigenous stories, presenting them as myths or fairy tales. In 1964 the first Indigenous author and artist to do so produced a collection of traditional stories reflective of Indigenous knowledge, teaching, and learning practices. Political advances achieved by Indigenous people during the twentieth century continue to address the imbalance heavily weighted to depictions of Indigenous cultures in children’s books by non-Indigenous producers. I contrast the colonial retelling of Australian Legendary Tales by Kate Langloh Parker with The Legends of Moonie Jarl by Butchulla author and artist Wilf Reeves and Olga Miller to show how transformative an active Indigenous voice is for the Australian literary landscape.' (Publication abstract)

'This article examines three fairy-tale texts that foreground women’s roles in Australia. We argue that although Kathleen Jennings’s Flyaway (2020) and Danielle Wood’s Mothers Grimm (2014) and her short story “All Kinds of Fur” (2021) are feminist insofar as they center women’s stories, they are limited by the extent to which they depict women working collaboratively. Although the fairy tale has the potential to disrupt patriarchal norms, these narratives offer constrained stories of women’s lives in which collaboration is possible but often fails to live up to its feminist potential to overturn conservative ideologies of femininity and power.' (Publication abstract)

'Australian fairy-tale masculinity in the young adult (YA) novel Valentine reinscribes modes of maleness in stereotypical forms. This article argues that the character Finn Blacklin marries European fairy lore of violent and monstrous faeries with Australian traditions of “larrikin faeries.” Through the violence associated with the Seelie Courts, and his fear of being othered or deemed feminine as a changeling faerie, Finn perpetuates hegemonic masculinity. As a modern iteration of the “larrikin” faerie, Finn reinscribes overindulgence and misogyny as standard in Australian boyhood. The characterization of Finn in Valentine therefore perpetuates stereotypical understandings of fairy-tale masculinity.' (Publication abstract)

'As the children of French expatriates in Australia, yo-yoing constantly between the two countries, my siblings and I grew up in two worlds. And part of that was expressed in different experiences of landscape. In Australia, we lived in Sydney, but my parents also bought a seven-acre bush block in the nearby Blue Mountains, not to build on, but simply to be in the bush. It was my father’s favorite place. We would go there on weekends, and Dad, machete in hand, would clear a path for us through the undergrowth down to the creek. There, we’d sit and eat Maman’s excellent picnic lunch, drink from a canvas waterbag my father had hung on a tree, and try to catch yabbies in the creek. There were dangers: the occasional bull ant or two (ouch!) and once or twice a snake caused much excitement but there were also sweet-voiced birds, and the odd kangaroo (though most of them kept away, given the racket a gaggle of lively kids created!). Back in France, in the southwestern village where we owned a beautiful old house, the nearby forest of Goujon was also a favorite family haunt. There in the green depths filled with birdsong, you might come across hares, rabbits, and hedgehogs and once, a curious young fox. There were dangers there, too—including the occasional viper, but most of all, our father told us, the forest of Goujon was reputed to be enchanted so we must on no account wander off or we might never find our way out again.'  (Introduction)

'A bulging-eyed, forest-green frog perches on the branch of a gumtree with an azure sky behind him, a jaunty golden crown atop his head, and four letters resting at his webbed feet: AFTS. This stunning logo by fantasy artist Regan Kubecek belongs to the Australian Fairy Tale Society, established in 2013, by a passionate group of readers, storytellers, performers, academics, writers, poets, artists, musicians, teachers, and librarians dedicated to exploring fairy tales in the Australian context. The society’s ambitious objectives include collecting original Australian fairy tales, adaptations, and criticism; facilitating new fairy-tale works (literary, visual, musical, and performative); and increasing public awareness of the value of fairy tales in or about Australia (“About the AFTS”). Despite its status as a national not-for-profit organization, however, the story of how the AFTS came to fruition, and the numerous contributions it has made to Australian literary studies over the past eight years, is little known outside fey circles.'  (Introduction)

'South of the Sun is a curious mixture of tales, poetry, and illustrations. The book has been collaboratively produced by a subcommittee of the Australian Fairy Tale Society (AFTS)—a small not-for-profit organization established in 2013 with the goal of collecting, preserving, discussing, sharing, and creating Australian fairy tales. The anthology brings together works created by members of the society, with a sprinkling of nonmember contributions by more established Australian writers, and includes mostly short stories, with a few poems, and a generous sprinkling of accompanying illustrations.'  (Introduction)