Indo-Australian Literary Collaboration
Sharon Rundle, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
My poster presentation aims to promote discussion about the process of planning a cross-cultural Indo-Australian collaborative volume. The poster will promote "Fear Factor Terror Incognito" an anthology of stories by twenty authors from Australia and the Indian subcontinent, which I co-edited with Dr Meenakshi Bharat, Associate Professor at the University of Delhi. Discussion flowing from the poster presentation will include liaising with my co-editor in Delhi, as well as contributing authors, translators and publishers on two continents to bring together an Indo-Australian collaborative volume. The way in which we approached the authors and how they responded with a personal, apolitical approach to the theme of how terrorism impacts on us in our everyday lives is also worthy of discussion. At a time when relations between India and Australia have been strained by anti-social behaviour from some individuals in the Australian community, this strives to bring intelligence and depth into the discussion; as well as understanding and goodwill.
Picador India has just released "Fear Factor Terror Incognito". Authors include David Malouf, Thomas Keneally, Rosie Scott, Devika Brendon, Jeremy Fisher, Susanne Gervay, Salman Rushdie, Gulzar, Meera Kant, Neelum Saran Gour; with Foreword by Yasmine Gooneratne. A Picador Australia edition will be released in March 2010. The launches in Goa and Sydney will bring Australians and Indians together in a spirit of celebration. Dr Meenakshi Bharat and Sujata Sankranti will be speaking on a panel at the UTS Transforming Cultures Research Centre in March 2010.
From the Foreword by Yasmine Gooneratne: "In English and in English translation, uttered in many different voices like so many rockets launched from different points of a devastated landscape, there rises from the pages of this astonishing book the sound that today drowns every other concern in all but the most remote and isolated parts of the earth . The writers in the Bharat/Rundle anthology do not offer solutions. Instead, they lead readers along the hidden paths of an unfamiliar psychology to make their own discoveries . 'a powerful indictment of war, of the destruction and tragedy it causes'. "
From the Introduction: "The idea was to recognize and reiterate the responsibility of the artist. And even as we embarked on the project, an observation kept rearing up. It was that the creative artist, whether Australian or Indian, is equally disturbed by this linked assault on humanity as anyone else. But, and this is edifying, the artist is not driven into typical postures . [but] makes a brave attempt to shift perspectives, to empathize, to gain insight, to understand 'this training in the technology of murder', and its place against, often, the mundane, humdrum background of everyday experience, in the setting of an office, a home, a family . sometimes with disbelief, at times with fear, but honestly."
I have been collaborating with colleagues in India for over ten years and have visited Delhi to give workshops, talks and readings. I will read a paper at the Fifth Biennial International Conference of the Indian Association for the Study of Australia "India and Australia: Negotiating Change" in January, 2010, at Goa University. I acknowledge the support of the IASA, the Australia-India Council which is providing a travel grant and the Copyright Agency Limited for their award from the Creative Industries' Career Fund of CAL's Cultural Fund.
Sharon Rundle is a casual academic at UTS, coordinator of UTS Alumni Writers' Network and editor of Writers Connect. She has taught writing courses for fifteen years at The Nottingham Trent University (UK) trAce Writing School, Summer School and Writing Workshop; Season of Inspiration Writing Course; James Cook University IML. She is a member of the Society of Editors (NSW); Institute of Professional Editors and Australian Society of Authors. Her fiction, articles and essays appear in anthologies including 'Desert in Bloom - Contemporary Indian Women's Fiction in English", Pencraft International (India); and Modern Australian Short Stories, Five Mile Press (Australia).