Magical Realism and the Transcultural Politics of Irony: Alexis Wright’s Plains of Promise
Keywords:
Magical realism, postcolonialism, transculturalism, irony, Aboriginal literature, Alexis WrightAbstract
Abstract
Magical realist fiction has been repeatedly explained in terms of territorialised projects of cultural renewal and in ways that rhetorically exceed its status as literature. Such readings, however, have overlooked the transcultural nature of the literary form and the ways in which it is always radicalised by the dialogical play of irony. The neglect of irony can be understood in relation to a traditional suspicion of the aesthetic within postcolonial discourse, according to which the aesthetic is conceptualised as inimical to the political concerns of postcolonial texts. However, following Bill Ashcroft’s reassessment of the aesthetic in postcolonial contexts, and engaging Gerald Vizenor’s theorisation of irony’s valence in postcolonial magical realist fiction, this paper reconfigures the hermeneutic tradition associated with magical realism in order to redeem its aesthetic and political vitality. Focusing on the magical realist novel Plains of Promise (1997) by the Australian Aboriginal (Waanyi) writer Alexis Wright, this paper reveals the aesthetic strategy of irony as central to the magical realist text’s subversion of colonial discourse and its dynamic vision of Aboriginal sovereignty.
References
Adams, Jenni. Magic Realism in Holocaust Literature: Troping the Traumatic Real. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Althans, Katrin. Darkness Subverted: Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film. Goettingen: Bonn University Press, 2010.
Ashcroft, Bill. ‘Towards a Postcolonial Aesthetics.’ Journal of Postcolonial Writing 51.4 (2015): 410-21.
Author
--.
--.
Barrett, Susan. ‘Reconstructing Australia’s Shameful Past: The Stolen Generations in Life-Writing, Fiction and Film.’ Lignes 2 (2005): 1-13.
Campbell, Charlie. Scapegoat: A History of Blaming Other People. London: Duckworth Overlook, 2011.
Carpentier, Alejo. Tientos y Diferencias (‘Preludes and Variations’). Montevideo: Arca, 1967.
Di Iorio Sandin, Lyn and Richard Perez. ‘Introduction.’ Moments of Magical Realism in US Ethnic Literatures. Ed. Lyn Di Iorio Sandin and Richard Perez. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 1-15.
Fuguet, Alberto. ‘I am not a Magical Realist!” Salon. 12 June 1997.
Hall, Kate. ‘“All are Implicated”: Violence and Accountability in Sam Watson’s The Kadaitcha Sung and Alexis Wright’s Plains of Promise.’ Frontier Skirmishes: Literary and Cultural Debates in Australia after 1992. Ed. Russell West-Pavlov and Jennier Wawrzinek, Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter GmbH Heidelberg, 2010. 199-214.
Hutcheon, Linda. Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. London: Routledge, 1994.
Jose, Nicholas. Black Sheep: Journey to Borroloola. South Yarra (VIC): Hardie Grant, 2002.
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. New York: Bantam, 1994.
Morris, Christine Faye. ‘A Dialogical Encounter with Indigenous Jurisprudence.’ PhD Dissertation, Griffith University, 2007.
Ravenscroft, Alison. ‘Dreaming of Others: Carpentaria and its Critics.’ Cultural Studies Review 16.2 (2010): 194-224.
--. ‘What Falls from View? On Re-reading Alexis Wright’s Plains of Promise.’ Australian
Literary Studies 25.4 (2010): 70-84.
Rody, Caroline. ‘Jewish Post-Holocaust Fiction and the Magical Realist Turn.’ Moments of Magical Realism in US Ethnic Literatures. Ed. Lyn Di Iorio Sandin and Richard Perez. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 39-63.
Scott, Kim. Benang: From the Heart. South Fremantle (WA): Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1999.
Siskind, Mario. ‘Magical Realism.’ The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature. Ed. Ato Quayson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 833-68.
Valdez Moses, Michael. ‘Magical Realism at World’s End.’ Literary Imagination: The Review of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics 3.1 (2001): 105-33.
Valenta, Katie. ‘Ambiguity in Alexis Wright’s Plains of Promise.’ Journal of the European Association of Studies on Australia 3.2 (2012): 47-58.
Vernay, Jean-Francois. ‘An Interview with Alexis Wright.’ Antipodes 18.2 (2004): 119-122.
Vizenor, Gerald. Bearheart: The Airship Chronicles. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.
--. ‘Trickster Discourse: Comic Holotropes and Language Games.’ Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures. Ed. Gerald Vizenor. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. 187-211.
--. Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance. Hanover (NH): Wesleyan University Press, 1994.
--. Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
--. Native Liberty: Natural Reason and Cultural Survivance. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.
Vizenor, Gerald & A. Robert Lee. Postindian Conversations. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
Warnes, Christopher. Magical Realism and the Postcolonial Novel: Between Faith and Irreverence. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Wright, Alexis. Plains of Promise. St Lucia (QLD): University of Queensland Press, 1997.
--.‘Politics of Writing.’ Southerly 62.2 (2002): 10-20.
--. The Swan Book. Artarmon (NSW): Giramondo, 2013.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The copyright for articles in this journal is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use with proper attribution in educational and other non-commercial sectors.Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.1 Australia
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.1 Australia License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.1/au/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
