Travel Writing from Black Australia

Aboriginality has, in recent decades, been appropriated to furnish the Australian nation with a unique and identifiable tourist brand. This is deeply ironic given the realities of life for many Aboriginal people in Australian society. For many travel writers, this clash between different regimes of valuing Aboriginality is one of the great

Robert Clarke teaches English studies in the School of Humanities, University of Tasmania, Australia. His research focuses on contemporary Australian fiction and travel writing. He is editor of Celebrity Colonialism: Fame, Power and Representation in Colonial and Postcolonial Cultures (2009) and The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing (forthcoming).

Introduction 1. Journeys to Another Country: Utopia, Melancholia, and Aboriginality in Travel Writing 2. Exotic Travellers: Aboriginality in Robyn Davidson's Tracks (1980) and Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines (1987) 3. Free Spirits: Aboriginality and Australian New Age Travel Books 4. "Britz Down Under": Race and Ordinary Australia 5. Journeys to Country: Sally Morgan and Ruby Langford Ginibi "Return Home" 6. Dark Places: The Ghosts of Terra Nullius Conclusion