“Australian Gothic fiction offers insights into the country’s history and culture, as well as a powerful lens through which to imagine the future…”
In April, I had the chance to write again for Reader’s Digest – this time about the Australian Gothic genre.
For those who haven’t heard of the Australian Gothic, it is a popular and continually evolving genre within Australian literature. While it has roots in colonial attitudes that conceptualised the Australian continent as godless and uncanny, the genre has since developed in a way that questions these same prejudices and shines a light on colonial Australia’s history of Indigenous genocide and cultural erasure in particular.
The Australian Gothic also has a strong, important future ahead of it. Gothic fiction can serve as a gauge of cultural fears and social dilemmas. As Australia grapples with a changing climate – the effects of which are already manifesting, such as in Australia’s nightmare fire season of 2019-20 – it will be intriguing to see how the country’s gothic literature evolves and (hopefully) continues to hold power to account.
You can read the full piece on the Reader’s Digest website here. Many thanks to Eva Mackevic for commissioning this piece.
