Writing Woman, Writing Place: Contemporary Australian and South African Fiction

Writing Woman, Writing Placeanalyzes the ways in which contemporary women writers in the two "settler" colonies of Australia and South Africa explore notions fo self, identity and place in their fiction. Both Australian and South African societies are undergoing the process of coming to terms with their often violent colonial pasts and , in doing so, are also re-evaluating and re-examining the history of white privilege and indigenous dispossession. Contemporary women writers in these two societies are still writing about similar issues as did earlier generations of women, such as exclusions from discourses of nation, a problematic relationship to place and belonging, relations with indigenous people and the way in which women's subjectivity has been constructed through national stereotypes and representations. This book describes and analyzes some contemporary responses to "writing woman, writing place" through close readings of particular texts that explore these issues.

Sue Kossew is a senior lecturer in the School of English at the University of New South Wales.