Alternative Archival Memories of Australian Convicts in Gould's Book of Fish
Gould's Book of Fish is a classic by contemporary Australian writer Richard Flanagan.Revisiting the early colonial history of 19th Australia,the novel tells the story of a British convict who digs deep into the official archives and makes use of the visual archives of the colony as a means of exposing the deliberate distortion of historical truths by colonial discourse,thus challenging the cultural amnesia that is so prevalent today.Flanagan's artistic treatment of the archiving process reveals the memory properties of archives and the role of power in archival memories on the one hand,and builds an alternative archive of the convict transportation to Tasmania on the other,filling in the"missing"gaps in the official archives.Gould's Book of Fish provides a multi-modal memory network,highlighting Flanagan's subversion of the official history,deconstruction of colonial discourse,and satire of civilization,with the aim of examining the obscured history of convict exile in Australia and the identity dilemma of the convict community.
Richard FlanaganGould's Book of Fishconvictsarchival memorycounter-memory
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