Literary hoaxes

Discusses how the cases of Colin Johnson/Mudrooroo and Helen Darville/Demidenko complicate and reveal fractures in 'Australian' identity. 'By not being [the hegemonic] Australian, Mudrooroo and…

Discusses the connection between Peter Carey's My Life as a Fake (2003) and the Ern Malley hoax. 'The novel demonstrates what the hoax itself revealed…

'Pleasure in the spurious helps perpetuate it' (89), writes K.K. Ruthven, author of Faking Literature. And he is right. Indeed, the argument that Ruthven…

Discusses critical responses to The Hand that Signed the Paper, and their perception of Darville/Demidenko.

Explores the poetic politics behind the Ern Malley affair and its rivalling groups (Sydney vs Melbourne/Adelaide) and investigates “the fabric of differences and unacknowledged similarities…

Discusses Wandra Koolmatrie's autobiography, My Own Sweet Time (1994), later revealed as a fiction written by Leon Carmen. 'In this paper, I want to map…

To combine imposture with autobiography is surely to create an oxymoron. Despite the extravagantly creative strategies that some autobiographers have used (famously, Gertrude Stein writing…

Discusses 'the long Australian tradition of literary hoaxes and imposture', and introduces this special issue of ALS on literary hoaxes and impostures. "This volume does…

"we might read Forbidden Love in terms of a set of conditions that have allowed stories of abuse, trauma and exploitation to drive the memoir…

IN my role as a teacher of Australian literature and Australian studies in an Australian university, I find my classes regularly contain a significant number…

The Demidenko/Darville affair was a difficult episode in the cultural life of Australia. News of the young writer's identity fraud hit front pages of newspapers…

Discusses Gwen Harwood's approach to suburban life and domestic modernity, particularly in her satirical and pseudonymous poems. 'Despite her clear apprehension that, in the world's…