Saturday 6 January, 2007

Original?

An article I wrote on ideas about plagarism and originality ran in the Age today. 'As borders of all kinds become more porous, we've become obsessed with the monitoring of them. These debates are taking place alongside other territorial debates, such as the one between historians and fiction writers over the way in which fiction both uses and creates versions of history. Three years ago I wrote that people are made uncomfortable by fiction and try to undo it by tracking down what they perceive to be the truth behind it. I quoted novelist and essayist Delia Falconer, who argued that in John Howard's Australia an extremely literal culture has grown up around all debates, including debates about our understanding of fiction.'