Allegory, Space, Colonialism: Remembering Babylon and the Production of Colonial History
Abstract
Remembering Babylon, with its strange and compelling story of Gemmy Fairley's negotiation between 'Australian' and 'Aboriginal' identities, is, like 'The Writing Lesson', simultaneously an allegorical re-enactment of the classic colonial encounter and an exploration of the process by which subjectivities are constructed and legitimated. What is at stake in these texts is the imbrication of identity with difference, the relationship between history and narrative, and the implication of the act of writing in complex forms of domination and exclusion
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Published 1 October 1995 in Volume 17 No. 2. Subjects: Colonisation of Australia, Historical fiction, Historiography, Narrative techniques, David Malouf.
Cite as: Spinks, Lee. ‘Allegory, Space, Colonialism: Remembering Babylon and the Production of Colonial History.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, 1995, doi: 10.20314/als.637ce855f7.