'The following article examines how Australian literary fiction by women is received in the United States. In particular, it considers how books are positioned by publishers, reviewers and authors as relevant to an American audience as well as to what extent Australian literary fiction’s appeal is borne out in reviews and in an online forum, Goodreads. To address these questions, I examine the US reception of three diverse literary novels by Australian women: Waanyi author Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (Atria Books, 2016), Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend (Riverhead, 2020), and Michelle de Kretser’s Questions of Travel (Little, Brown, 2013). I argue that recent Australian literary fiction by women makes an appeal to US readers through a combination of “transnational orientation”—or ideas, characters and settings that a novel evokes to address a global readership—which are leveraged by publishers in book design and endorsements, and “authorial disambiguation”, in the form of essays and websites written by authors and addressed to local and global readers. Efforts to draw attention to a novel’s currency for a US audience are unevenly evident in reviews in broadsheets and trade publications, as well as on Goodreads.' (Publication abstract)

'This chapter considers Alexis Wright’s trajectory as a writer from Grog War (1997) to The Swan Book (2013), arguing that her body of work presents a consistent vision that is “at once Aboriginal and Australian, modern and ancient, local and yet outward-looking.” It pays special attention to the notion of “all times,” the relation between form and politics, and how imaginative sovereignty underpins Wright’s work.' (Publication abstract)

'The Marina du Château room was the perfect location for the 2021 international conference "Indigenous Environmental Practices as Responses to Pollution," directly following the 2021 conference on Alexis Wright's Carpentaria in Brest. On October 21 and 22, 2021, the sunlit room lined with high windows opening on a large, oval balcony directly looked out on the Brest Harbour, such that the sky and ocean became integral parts of the conference venue. The ocean's mesmerizing power added an ethereal touch to the intriguing conversations of all participants, including Alexis Wright and Tara June Winch. Brest was the perfect point of convergence between the Americas and Oceania, with participants from all over the world, virtually and on-site, reflecting on contemporary environmental challenges and the different ways Indigenous artistic practices tackle them.' (Introduction)

'Alexis Wright's critically acclaimed third novel, The Swan Book (2013), has been analyzed profusely by scholars around the world. No matter how manifold these interpretative nets may be, they always refer to the character Oblivion Ethyl(ene), aka Oblivia. What is particularly telling in that regard is that Oblivia as the novel's protagonist and focalizer is a speechless child. As the article shows, Wright's so-called total novel constructs Oblivia and the virus in her brain as the novel's narrator(s), enabling her to fill her speechless world with words and meaning. Hence, as a mute narrator, Oblivia becomes one of the most unreliable but equally one of the most honest, life-affirming storytellers in contemporary fiction. The universe of her unspoken words reveals Oblivia's ability to communicate with the nonhuman and other-than-human, offering readers who are receptive a story about what it means to be posthuman in a world that defies posthumanism.' (Publication abstract)