AustLit

'In a late interview with Rodney Wetherell (1979), when she was back in Australia and being interviewed rather more frequently in light of her rather belated status as a great Australian writer, Christina Stead found an intriguing way to deal with the equally frequent questions about the reasons for her expatriation to Europe in 1928. She implied that to be Australian was to be always already a citizen of the sea. Her conflation of national identity and the critical geographical identity of the island continent allowed her to argue that there was no especial volition to 'going abroad'. Ina sense, Stead claimed that she had an automatic 'dual citizenship' drawn from a symbiotic relationship between her marine identity and her Australian one. Of course, therefore, one would travel by sea..' (Introduction)