AustLit logo

AustLit

Introduction single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2015... 2015 Introduction
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.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Visitants Randolph Stow , London : Secker and Warburg , 1979 Z314711 1979 single work novel (taught in 1 units) Set in 1959 in the Trobriand Islands off the east coast of Papua, Visitants depicts a colonial outpost a few years away from independence, in which the white characters occupy a position of uneasy authority over the indigenous Islanders. The novel exposes the failures of communication between the two cultures, heightened by the inclusion of the well-documented sightings of four human figures in a disc-shaped craft in the sky above Boianai in June 1959. The narrative documents the psychic disintegration of another visitant, the white Patrol Officer Alistair Cawdor, who loses his ability to relate to other human beings, dreaming instead of contact with the star-people in the Boianai flying saucer. The parallel story of the islanders traces an adroit political coup against the ageing Paramount Chief, carried out under the cover of a cargo cult uprising.' Anthony J. Hassall 'Foreword ' (October 2002): x., Visitants (2003). Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2015
Last amended 28 Jul 2015 08:40:46
Introductionsmall AustLit logo
Subjects:
  • Visitants Randolph Stow , 1979 single work novel
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X