Exile as origin: Definitions of Australian identities in Malouf's '12 Edmondstone Street'

Starting with the central significance of autobiography for constructions o f national identity, this essay examines the potential inherent in autobiog raphy as a form of cultural agency capable of offering models of social exi stence based upon tolerance and pluralism. The issue of a possible nomadic poetics as manifest in autobiography is addressed through a reading of a re cent autobiographical text by one of the most important contemporary Austra lian writers, David Malouf, 12 Edmondstone Street (1986). Malouf's autobiog raphy depicts a childhood in Brisbane under the sign of exile and marginali ty. The aporias created by the apparent tension between roots and nomadism form the mainspring of Malouf's writing enterprise, and in turn work to evo ke a decentered, fragmented version of Antipodean identities, one which acc urately corresponds to the multiple realities on Australian destinies.