Reckoning with the Past: Family Historiographies in Postcolonial Australian Literature

This is the first book to examine how Australian fiction writers draw on family histories to reckon with the nation's colonial past. Located at the intersection of literature, history, and sociology, it explores the relationships between family storytelling, memory, and postcolonial identity. Discussing some of Australia's most popular and critically acclaimed authors - including Kate Grenville, Richard Flanagan, Sally Morgan, Andrew McGahan, Kim Scott, Brian Castro, and Christos Tsiolkas - the book offers a powerful new reflection on the social role of literature in national identity and opens cross-cultural dialogue on experiences of belonging in post-settlement Australia. With attention to the political potential of family histories, Reckoning with the Past argues that authors' often autobiographical works enable us to uncover, confront, and revise national mythologies, particularly the lingering, haunting aftermath of colonial injustice.

An important contribution to the emerging global conversation about multidirectional memory and the need to attend to the effects of colonisation, this book will appeal to an interdisciplinary field of scholarly readers.