en
Scientific article
Open access
English

Ecopoetic Encounters: Amnesia and Nostalgia in Alexis Wright's Environmental Fiction

ContributorsBarras, Arnaud
Publication date2015
Abstract

In Carpentaria (2006) and The Swan Book (2013), Alexis Wright establishes an allegorical mode where she reimagines Europeans' first encounters with Australia from an Aboriginal environmental perspective. In this narrative system, the discovery of Australia is not realised by exploring colonisers, but by vulnerable strangers who apprehend the continent both experientially and linguistically. In Carpentaria, the Stranger-figure of Elias Smith is left amnesic after surviving a shipwreck during a cyclone; his first encounter with Australia is extremely violent and results in a loss of personal (hi)story. In The Swan Book, the character of Bella Donna seeks refuge in the nostalgia of swan stories after the disappearance of her native lands due to climate change; her first encounter with Australia is characterised by slow violence and results in a profusion of stories. In this essay I argue that by drawing attention to the interweaving of language and experience and by dramatising the relationship between organism and environment, ‘ecopoetic encounters' allows readers to rediscover major episodes of Australian environmental history. Indeed, through the experiential and poetic meetings of Stranger-figures with Australia, Wright does not depict the initial moment of discovery as a nation-building event; rather she re-narrates it as a counterdiscursive episode of environmental historical rediscovery. Journeys of migration, environment transformations, and the marginalisation of populations are translated in an Aboriginal allegorical mode that allows European readers, through self-reflexivity, to rediscover the Australian continent through the perceptions, actions and emotions of Stranger-figures.

eng
Keywords
  • Australian literature
  • Ecocriticism
  • Ecopoetics
  • Encounter
  • Aboriginal literature
Funding
  • Swiss National Science Foundation - Doc.Mobility Fellowship
Citation (ISO format)
BARRAS, Arnaud. Ecopoetic Encounters: Amnesia and Nostalgia in Alexis Wright’s Environmental Fiction. In: Australasian journal of ecocriticism and cultural ecology, 2015, vol. 5, p. 54–67. doi: 10.60162/swamphen.5.10629
Main files (1)
Article (Published version)
accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
ISSN of the journal1839-843X
658views
546downloads

Technical informations

Creation12/18/2015 3:56:00 PM
First validation12/18/2015 3:56:00 PM
Update time01/16/2024 1:44:24 PM
Status update01/16/2024 1:44:24 PM
Last indexation01/16/2024 1:44:26 PM
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack