What do we know about the australian literature? Maybe nothing, maybe very little. Australia was born as a series of British colonies so the literary tradition of the New World has always been linked to English literature.
But it is also true that two centuries after its founding Australia has given the world of letters writers own and a very personal narrative. In the beginning, Australian writers wrote about the new land and its dangers, outlaws, the aggressiveness of the desert, the beauty of the wild, the pioneer life, the camaraderie, the Aboriginal life. There is a whole mystique, so to speak, about colonial life and a genre of its own, the bush ballads, in the music.
Has Australia won the Nobel Prize for Literature? Yes, Patrick White was the winning writer. Do you remember the 80s TV series starring Richard Chamberlain, The Bird sings to death? It is based on a successful novel by Australian writer Coleen McCullough (died January 2015). And also an Australian novel, Schindler's Ark, by writer Thomas Keneally was the basis for the film. Schindler's List.
As you can see, in one way or another we know Australian writers.