AustLit

Martina Horakova examines an narratological approach used in double-voiced narratives in which present two equally authoritative narrative voices. The author analyses the genre of Australian Indigenous life writing and the nature of collaboration present between participants both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. To exemplify aspects of the structure of 'double-voice', and its narrative complexity the author examines the life writing of Rita and Jackie Huggins biographical account Auntie Rita.

Aboriginal life writing... 'is a syncretic practice: bound to postcolonial structure of mourning and trauma which while also deeply engaged with tradition and its restoration. This double condition of tradition and continuance has been a consistent problem in the Indigenous paradigm of writing and of life writing particularly. To write of life, it is often necessary to break with precolonial Indigenous tradition: at the very least (since one is writing), the traditional positioning of self and kinship within the complexity of oral culture.' In this essay, the author offers a partial survey of the bounds of life writing, and frames his approach whilst examining the complexities of tradition in post-colonial Australia.