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chairmanbernanke's review
2.0
Some good quotes and analysis of the White Australia policy and racism
tevreads's review
4.0
Writers on Writers. Nam Le on David Malouf, a fresh new voice in Australian writing, who has provided a memorable essay on Malouf and Australian society as a whole. Interestingly, Le seems to use Malouf as a point of reference for his own identity and nationalistic sentiment, his own perceptions of 'Australianness'. His critiques of refugee policies and even the very notion of the Westphalian nation-state were particularly apt.
To me, what was most memorable was lamentations of being representative, as an author, like Malouf himself states:
"As soon as a writer can be said to be what others label them (from whatever intention), they're no longer - no longer allowed to be - entirely themselves"
It's an interesting thought, Le highlighting his label as Vietnamese-Australian, and that Malouf was never labelled Lebanese-Australian, like British migrants are not labelled as English-Australian. Do such labels create normative circumstances in which we suspect someone to think or act in a certain way?
To me, what was most memorable was lamentations of being representative, as an author, like Malouf himself states:
"As soon as a writer can be said to be what others label them (from whatever intention), they're no longer - no longer allowed to be - entirely themselves"
It's an interesting thought, Le highlighting his label as Vietnamese-Australian, and that Malouf was never labelled Lebanese-Australian, like British migrants are not labelled as English-Australian. Do such labels create normative circumstances in which we suspect someone to think or act in a certain way?
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