Re-imagining the Gothic in Contemporary Australia: Carmel Bird Discusses Her Mandala Trilogy

CARMEL BIRD'S first book, a collection of short stories entitled Births , Deaths and Marriages , was published twenty-seven years ago and she has been publishing consistently ever since. Bird's contribution to the field of Australian literature as novelist, editor, the author of writer's manuals and several short story collections is preeminent. As one of Australia's most innovative and prolific contemporary authors Bird's extensive list of publications comprises eight novels, including those that make up the critically acclaimed Mandala Trilogy, The White Garden (1995), Red Shoes (1998), and Cape Grimm (2004); a book for children; a radio play about the life of an Indigenous Tasmanian girl, Mathinna, who was adopted for a short time by the governor of Tasmania in the mid-nineteenth century; and as editor of four anthologies of short stories by Australian authors, including The Penguin Century of Australian Stories (2000). Bird also edited The Stolen Children - Their Stories (1998), a devastating collection of oral histories by Indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their families as small children. This culturally significant text offers white Australia critical insight into the suffering endured by the first Australians, a legacy of the attempt by the Austf alian government to assimilate Indigenous people within an inherently racist white nation. As Bird contends in the Introduction, the stories may have a redemptive quality, "in the act of telling both fot the story tellers and for the listeners" (5). Two themes fundamental to Bird's work, which are evoked in many of her texts, are the lost child and the cultural importance of stories. Stoi ies and the art of storytelling have the potential to be a source of healing and regeneration in Bird's fiction and are also often a source of empowerment for many of her displaced characters.Bird is also the author of three writing manuals, including Writing the Story of Your Life (2007). One of her short stories, "A Telephone Call for Genevieve Snow," was made into a film, winning the Silver Lion Award for the best short film at the Venice International Film Festival in 2000. Several of her novels have been short listed for various awards and three of these, The Bluebird Cafe (1990), The White Garden, and Red Shoes, have all been short listed for the prestigious Miles Franklin award. With the release of Child of the Twilight in February 2010, the Mandala Trilogy will be extended into a quartet. Bird's work is notable not only for its inventive narratives, richly diverse intertextual references, and distinctive use of irony, but for the way it keenly evokes various Australian landscapes, particularly her birthplace of Tasmania, which becomes the key setting for the novels of the Mandala Trilogy. Bird's Tasmania is a strikingly beautiful but haunted island that she often returns to in her work to interrogate and explore its dark history, creating a space for untold and forgotten stories. She is particularly concerned with the lives of Australian women whose daily struggles, through her imaginative prose, become heroic feats.My interest in Bird's work was initially sparked by her unique approach to the Gothic, which has produced delightfully playful narratives which are also infused with a darkly satirical critique of certain aspects of Australian society. Having completed the discussion on the first novel of the Mandala Trilogy for the final chapter of my doctoral dissertation and ready to embark on a critique of the second novel, Red Shoes, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to personally interview Carmel and discuss with her some of the questions I had about her writing. Her generous responses to my questions greatly enriched my understanding of her work and inspired me in the writing of the final section of my dissertation, which was completed in September 2008. The following interview took place at Carmel's home in Melbourne over the course of a winter's day in June 2007. …