Artful Histories: Modern Australian Autobiography - Softcover

McCooey, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521567904 ISBN 13: 9780521567909

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Artful Histories is an account of modern Australian autobiography that radically revises theories of autobiography and discusses a remarkably broad range of popular and literary texts written over a period of three decades. In his challenge to post-structuralist theories of autobiography, particularly in terms of autobiography's relationship with fiction and history, David McCooey analyses the nature of the self, the question of intent and the role of narrative. He discusses the ways in which the autobiographer makes sense of his or her life through a developing but continuous awareness of the narrative quality of experience. The book explores themes around the mythology of childhood, education, sexuality, the discovery of hidden histories, the trauma of displacement and death and, finally, the importance of place in the Australian imagination.

About this title

Review

"Australian autobiography takes many forms and calls on many different strategies, all of which McCooey sets forth cogently in a jargon-free style that is tight and bright with all the fat squeezed out." Choice

Book Description

Artful Histories is an account of modern Australian autobiography that radically revises theories of autobiography and discusses a broad range of popular and literary texts. It contributes to our understanding of autobiography, the genre's history in Australia, and the Australian experience.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521567904
• ISBN 13: 9780521567909
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248