AustLit

'As we usher in 2006, the world these days is not so unlike a futuristic Peter Carey story: its borders expand and contract, coincidences abound, vast geographical expanses unravel. The circuits of culture have bizarre dreamscape logics, and time, history, and nation are no longer recognisable in the text-books we once relied upon for guidance and authority. Peter Carey's short-story 'A Windmill in the West' comes to mind: borders are dizzyingly arbitrary, yet nation and empire have direct and pernicious material effects on its main character despite, or perhaps even because of, their randomness. How interesting it is that in this context the first edited collection of critical essays on Carey's work should be produced by a German scholar — Andreas Gaile. Gaile has done a fabulous job editing this peerless international collection of critical essays on Carey's oeuvre. But what are the logics of the literary commodity market, of global critical reception, and coincidence that have produced this long overdue collection in such circumstances? ' (Introduction)