Beyond Babylon
Beyond Babylon (Original title: Remembering Babylon) is a novel by the Australian author David Malouf . It was first published in 1993 and is considered an influential book in understanding Australian identity.
content
A young Briton, Gemmy Fairley, was washed ashore in the almost uninhabited north of Australia in the mid-19th century . Aborigines take him in. He gets to know their culture and language, is valued by the Aborigines, but cannot become a full member of their tribal society due to his origins. 16 years later, at the age of 29, he returns to the world of the European settlers and continues to live with them.
With the description of this life in the field of tension between European culture and his past as a white Aborigine, between behavior and ignorance, Malouf draws a bow to Australian identity .
reception
The book won the first International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize .
expenditure
- Remembering Babylon . Random House Australia, Milsons Point, NSW 1993, ISBN 0-7011-5883-2
German edition:
- Beyond Babylon. Translated from the English by Adelheid Dormagen . Zsolnay, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-552-04807-3
literature
- Review: Gerhard Schulz: In the warmth of the pack. David Malouf's novel about a witch hunt. In: FAZ of October 1, 1996. Retrieved on August 13, 2014.
- Lynn Payne: Remembering Babylon: David Malouf - NEAP notes . National Educational Advancement Programs (NEAP), Carlton, Vic. 1997
- Barbara Ergenzinger: Identity crises and undecided ethnic identity. The individual in the field of tension between two cultures against the background of different epochs of the settlement history of Australia, presented in the most recent Australian narrative literature. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-631-33511-3 . (At the same time: Diss., Free University of Berlin, 1996).