Anthology of Australian Gay and Lesbian Writing - Robert Dessaix - Hardcover

9780195534573

0195534573

In this landmark collection of Australian writing spanning well over a century, an Australia emerges which is radically different from the cliched land of bronzed lifeguards and long-suffering sheepfarmers' wives. Robert Dessaix's anthology reflects the diversity, non-conformity, and ambiguity that have always been features of Australian society. An anthology of gay themes, rather than gay writers, it includes works by most of the country's celebrated authors, including Patrick White, Thea Astley, David Malouf, Elizabeth Jolley, Frank Moorhouse, and Helen Garner, along with a number of newer writers. A rare and refreshing openness permeates this entertaining and provocative volume. Through the fiction, poetry, and drama of over forty writers, the collection traces the development of a rich variety of gay and lesbian sensibilities from colonial times to the present. Robert Dessaix provides a long and helpful introductory overview of the literature. Ranging from the poetic to the polemical, the enigmatic to the erotic, this anthology celebrates the adventurousness and sophistication of Australian cultural history.