AustLit

'Over the years, Marvels & Tales has included fairy-tale studies work from Australia, notably Rebecca-Anne C. Do Rozario’s essay “Australia’s Fairy Tales Illustrated in Print: Instances of Indigeneity, Colonization, and Suburbanization” (2011) and most recently Danielle Wood’s “Writing Baba Yaga into the Tasmanian Bush” (2019) and Kirstyn McDermott’s novelette “Braid” (2021). But given the current vitality of the genre and its study in Australia— also noted by Andrew Teverson’s The Fairy Tale World (2019) and signaled by the growth of the Australian Fairy Tale Society and its publication of its South of the Sun: Australian Fairy Tales for the 21st Century (2021)—we really wanted to offer our readers a broader and more in-depth sense of what distinguishes Australian fairy tales today and how they are inflected by Australia’s history, peoples, and landscapes. This special issue, “Transplanted Wonder: Australian Fairy Tale,” does just that in its mapping of fairy-tale history in Australia, current transformations of the genre, and its reflections on issues of indigeneity, colonialism, gender, and place. Coeditors of “Transplanted Wonder: Australian Fairy Tale” Michelle J. Smith and Emma Whatman’s insight, collaborative approach, and hard work shaped this issue, and we thank them for their vision and persistence. The pandemic’s ravages are hardly over; in Australia the pandemic meant lockdowns for a good part of the time this special issue was in the works and all kinds of unpredictable challenges. Despite all this, the guest editors brought together a substantive and thought-provoking issue that delightfully includes analysis of fairy tales for different audiences and in various media. We are looking forward to future opportunities to continue to broaden the scope of scholarship on Australian fairy tales in our journal.' (Editorial)