AustLit

Paula Hamilton discusses her involvement in collection of oral history, and reflects upon the impact of the interviewer on the the resulting life narrative. She emphasises that interviewing is collaborating in narrative production.

Hooton considers feminist approaches to life writing and autobiographical theory.

Peter Read discusses his collaboration with Charles Perkins in the production of his biography of Perkins. Read comments on how their project was initiated and details Perkins reactions to, and requests for changes to, Read's manuscript. Read points out that the resultant text is reflective of Perkin's shifting, multivariant interpretations of his past.

James Walter surveys recent Australian life writing and comments on the debate regarding psychobiography, focusing on responses to Anson's biography of Bob Hawke. He asks whether the uneasiness which pychobiography provokes in Australia may be attributed to "the defensiveness of the colonial and neo-colonial past' (286).