There are distant shouts, rifle shots, the pounding of feet across the bridge, the sound of running. A woman’s scream carves the night then bubbles away. In 1930 the superintendent of a mission on a Queensland island, driven mad by his wife’s death, goes on a murderous rampage. Fearing for their lives, the other whites arm a young Indigenous man and order him to shoot Uncle Boss dead. The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow traces the lead-up to this bloody showdown and the repercussions in the years after—for Aboriginal people and the colonial overseers. Thea Astley was born in Brisbane in 1925. Her first novel, Girl with a Monkey, was published in 1958 and her third, The Well Dressed Explorer (1962), won the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Many notable books followed, among them the groundbreaking A Kindness Cup (1974), which addressed frontier massacres of Indigenous Australians, and It’s Raining in Mango (1987). Her last novel was Drylands (1999), her fourth Miles Franklin winner. Her fiction is distinguished by vivid imagery and metaphor; a complex, ironic style; and a desire to highlight oppression and social injustice. One of the most distinctive and influential Australian novelists of the twentieth century, Astley died in 2004. A lifelong chain-smoker famed for her sharp wit, Thea Astley died in 2004, the year after her husband died. She remains one of the most distinctive and influential Australian novelists of the twentieth century. ‘Passion, brilliance and originality.’ Sydney Morning Herald ‘Formidable...Uniquely provocative, acerbic and glittering.’ Australian

In the small hours of a January morning in 1930, on an island off the Queensland coast, a man goes berserk with a rifle and a box of gelignite. Is he evil? Or crazy? His violence is in fact a mirror for the brutality of Australian life - and is a dim reflection at that, in a country where atrocities by whites against blacks are so ingrained few question them. The effects of the rampage ripple out from the island to link the fates of those who witnessed it, across the north and down through the decades. It is a time when silence in the face of tyranny is at its loudest. When allegiance to English niceties is confounded by the landscape and by the weather. And change is a slow wind that brings little real difference.

Beaches are places of contact, play, confrontation and friction: first comers always arrive on a beach. After Europeans moved into the Antipodes, the coast was the first frontier to be defined. Flinders' circumnavigation in 1802 had mapped 'Australia', revealing the land as 'girt by sea', as the national anthem continues to remind us. All kinds of ideas about the coast, beaches, sea changes, holiday places and islands swirl and eddy in this unique collection of writing.

The present volume contains general essays on: unequal African/Western academic exchange; the state and structure of postcolonial studies; representing male violence in Zimbabwe's wars; parihaka in the poetic imagination of Aotearoa New Zealand; Middle Eastern, Nigerian, Moroccan, and diasporic Indian women's writing; community in post-Independence Maltese poetry in English; key novels of the Portuguese colonies; the TV series The Kumars at No. 42; fictional representations of India; the North in western Canadian writing; and a pedagogy of African-Canadian literature. As well as these, there is a selection of poems from Malta by Daniel Massa, Adrian Grima, Norbert Bugeja, Immanuel Mifsud, and Maria Grech Ganado, and essays providing close readings of works by the following authors and filmmakers: Thea Astley, George Elliott Clarke, Alan Duff, Francis Ebejer, Lorena Gale, Romesh Gunesekera, Sahar Khalīfah, Anthony Minghella, Michael Ondaatje, Caryl Phillips, Edgar Allan Poe, Salman Rushdie, Ghādah al-Sammān, Meera Syal, Lee Tamahori. Contributors: Leila Abouzeid, Hoda Barakat, Amrit Biswas, Thomas Bonnici, Stella Borg Barthet, Ivan Callus, Devon Campbell-Hall, Saviour Catania, George Elliott Clarke, Brian Crow, Pilar Cuder-Domínguez, Bärbel Czennia, Hilary P. Dannenberg, Pauline Dodgson-Katiyo, Bernadette Falzon, Daphne Grace, Adrian Grima, Kifah Hanna, Janne Korkka, T. Vijay Kumar, Chantal Kwast-Greff, Maureen Lynch Pèrcopo, Kevin Stephen Magri, Isabel Moutinho, Melanie A. Murray, Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju, Gerhard Stilz, Jesús Varela Zapata, Christine Vogt-William.

'This landmark contribution to Australian literary studies is the first collection of critical responses to the work of one of our most important novelists, Thea Astley. As well as essays from leading Australian and international critics, dating from 1967 to the present, it includes three essays by Astley herself, a major interview with her and the first Thea Astley lecture, given by Kate Grenville in 2005.' Professor Elizabeth Webby Sydney University

Women are rarely if ever mentioned in commentaries upon Australian Christianity and spirituality. Only exceptional women are recognized as authorities on religious matters. Why is this so? Does it matter? Don't people from the same religious tradition share similar experiences of the divine, regardless of their gender? Rewriting God asks whether women have been writing about the divine and whether their insights are different from those contained in malestream accounts of Australian Christianity and spirituality. An analysis of the writings of popular theologians and religious commentators over the last twenty years suggests that the most popular form of spirituality among Australian theologians is Desert Spirituality. An analysis of women's autobiographical writings, however, suggests that the desert is irrelevant to many women's spiritual experiences. This book, through a close investigation of the fictions of Thea Astley, Elizabeth Jolley and Barbara Hanrahan, attempts to posit alternative forms of women's spirituality and to signal ways in which this spirituality is already being expressed. From the evidence gathered here, it becomes obvious that traditional expressions of Australian Christianity and spirituality are gender-specific and that they have functioned to deny women's religious experiences and to silence their claims to equality in the sight and service of the divine. It becomes obvious, too, that women have been developing their own forms of religious expression and that these may be expected to supplant gradually withering images of Desert Spirituality. Whether this new imagery will strengthen Australian Christianity or whether it merely marks a decline in the authority of Christianity remains a moot point.

This is the first biography of one of Australia's most beloved novelists, Thea Astley (1925–2004). Over a 50-year writing career, Astley published more than a dozen novels and short story collections, including The Acolyte, Drylands, and The Slow Natives, and was the first person to win multiple Miles Franklin Awards. With many of her works published internationally, Astley was a trailblazer for women writers. In her personal life, she was renowned for her dry wit, eccentricity, and compassion. Karen Lamb has drawn on an unparalleled range of interviews and correspondence to create a detailed picture of Thea the woman, as well as Astley the writer. She has sought to understand Astley's private world and how that shaped the distinctive body of work that is Thea Astley's literary legacy.

For a full list of entries and contributors, sample entries, and more, visit the Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women website. Featuring comprehensive global coverage of women's issues and concerns, from violence and sexuality to feminist theory, the Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women brings the field into the new millennium. In over 900 signed A-Z entries from US and Europe, Asia, the Americas, Oceania, and the Middle East, the women who pioneered the field from its inception collaborate with the new scholars who are shaping the future of women's studies to create the new standard work for anyone who needs information on women-related subjects.

With fresh journalistic writing and reams of information on what to see and do, this guide takes readers from the big cities to the countryside. Includes candid reviews on restaurants and accommodations for all budgets. 83 maps. Full-color insert. Two-color throughout.

World-renowned 'tell it like it is' guidebook Discover Australia with this comprehensive, entertaining, 'tell it like it is' Rough Guide, packed with comprehensive practical information and our experts' honest and independent recommendations. Whether you plan to swim with whale sharks, explore the Atherton Tablelands or sail in the Whitsunday Islands, The Rough Guide to Australia will help you discover the best places to explore, sleep, eat, drink and shop along the way. Features of The Rough Guide to Australia: - Detailed regional coverage: provides in-depth practical information for each step of all kinds of trip, from intrepid off-the-beaten-track adventures, to chilled-out breaks in popular tourist areas. Regions covered include: Sydney and around, New South Wales and the ACT, Coastal Queensland, Outback Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia, Melbourne and around, Victoria, and Tasmania. - Honest independent reviews: written with Rough Guides' trademark blend of humour, honesty and expertise, and recommendations you can truly trust, our writers will help you get the most from your trip to Australia. - Meticulous mapping: always full-colour, with clearly numbered, colour-coded keys. Find your way around Sydney, Melbourne and many more locations without needing to get online. - Fabulous full-colour photography: features a richness of inspirational colour photography, including the captivating, rugged peaks of the Flinders Ranges and the stunning blue waters (and whale sharks!) of Ningaloo Marine Park. - Things not to miss: Rough Guides' rundown of Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide's best sights and top experiences. - Itineraries: carefully planned routes will help you organise your trip, and inspire and inform your on-the-road experiences. - Basics section: packed with essential pre-departure information including getting there, getting around, accommodation, food and drink, health, the media, festivals, sports and outdoor activities, culture and etiquette, shopping and more. - Background information: comprehensive Contexts chapter provides fascinating insights into Australia, with coverage of history, religion, ethnic groups, environment, wildlife and books, plus a handy language section and glossary. - Covers: Sydney and around, New South Wales and the ACT, Coastal Queensland, Outback Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia, Melbourne and around, Victoria, and Tasmania. About Rough Guides: Rough Guides have been inspiring travellers for over 35 years, with over 30 million copies sold globally. Synonymous with practical travel tips, quality writing and a trustworthy 'tell it like it is' ethos, the Rough Guides list includes more than 260 travel guides to 120+ destinations, gift-books and phrasebooks.