Book review of "the Untravelled World" by Ian Reid, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, WA, Australia, 2012, ISBN 978-1-74258-396-9

Kuttainen, Victoria

Abstract

[Extract] That Untravelled World is the second novel by Perth- based author and academic lan Reid. His acclaimed first novel, The End of Longing, was published by UWAP in 2011. As the Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia and Emeritus Professor at Curtin University, Reid has branched into creative work - including historical fiction, non-fiction, and poetry - but his first and most distinguished career was as an academic and professor of literature. I first encountered Reid the academic, as a literary historian of the interwar period, through his now classic Fiction and the Great Depression in Australian and New Zealand (Edward Arnold, 1979). Like Reid, I am interested in this critically overlooked period of Australian history and publishing, so important to its modern development, yet often eclipsed by studies of Australian fiction of other eras that loom larger in the national imaginary: the 1890s, Gallipoli, or World War Two and after. As Reid turns to fiction to explore this period in his novel That Untravelled World, I find in it rich opportunities to contemplate alternatives to the nationalist bush-centred narratives of Australian history and literature. For these reasons, Reid the writer has now also captured my attention.

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0817-458X

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James Cook University

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