Nuclear Issues and Australian Literature : B. Wongar's Photographic Collection and "Nuclear Cycle"

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  • 核とオーストラリア文学 : B.ワンガーの写真集と連作小説を巡って
  • カク ト オーストラリア ブンガク : B.ワンガー ノ シャシンシュウ ト レンサク ショウセツ オ メグッテ

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Abstract

This paper focuses on the Serbia-born Australian writer B. Wongar, and examines his photographic collection Totem and Ore (2006) and "Nuclear Cycle" of writings, including Walg (1983), Karan (1986), Gobo Djara (1988), and Raki (1994). After immigrating to Australia and living with Aboriginal people in West Arnhem Land in the 1960s, Wongar became aware of the devastating impact of uranium mining and the British nuclear weapons testing of the 1950s on the nation's tribal Aboriginal people. He took more than 1,000 photographs during the 1960s and 1970s, mainly in the Northern Territory and Central Australia, in order to capture this dual nuclear tragedy of the indigenous people. Later, this nuclear theme would appear in his series of novels collectively known as the "Nuclear Cycle". Based on Wongar's autobiography and interviews carried out by the author, this paper first investigates the background to Wongar's photographic collection and its exhibition in the 1970s. This is followed by a close reading of Wongar's texts and an analysis of the "nuclear criticism" which Wongar presents in his "Nuclear Cycle". As a result of his homeland Serbia's experience over the course of the last century, including the Ottoman occupation, Nazi occupation, communist dictatorship, and the bloodshed of the 1990s, Wongar was in a position to understand the human disaster in Australia. By relating Aboriginal experiences to Serbian experiences, he was able to initiate a nuclear criticism encompassing multifaceted and profoundly imaginative perspectives. Wongar's works have been neglected and under-appreciated in Australia as a result of intense controversy over their subject matter. This paper attempts to re-evaluate Wongar's literary contribution as part of world literature in the post-Fukushima era.

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