This is the first sustained study of the politics of form in contemporary Australian Aboriginal fiction. Poetics and Politics of Relationality investigates how narratives by Kim Scott, Alexis Wright, Bruce Pascoe, and Tara June Winch employ formal devices to emphasise the significance of relations with the environment.

Dorothee Klein is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of English Literatures and Cultures at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. She has published articles on Aboriginal life-writing, contemporary Aboriginal fiction and short story cycles, and (cognitive) narratology.

Introduction: Towards a Poetics and Politics of Relationality

Chapter 1: Non-Human (Narrative) Authority in Bruce Pascoe's Earth

Chapter 2: Place-Based Storytelling in Kim Scott's Benang and That Deadman Dance

Chapter 3: Precarious Relations in Tara June Winch's Swallow the Air

Chapter 4: Non-Egocentric Relations and Ambiguity in Alexis Wright's Carpentaria

Chapter 5: Travelling Narratives and Community in Alexis Wright's The Swan Book

Chapter 6: Stories, Language, and Sharing in Kim Scott's Taboo

Conclusion: Experiencing Relationality