Malouf presses for novel reprints

IT is a "national disgrace" that so many Australian novels, from classics to recent Miles Franklin prize-winners, are out of print, says eminent novelist David Malouf.

IT is a "national disgrace" that so many Australian novels, from classics to recent Miles Franklin prize-winners, are out of print, says eminent novelist David Malouf.

Malouf, whom many consider to be our finest living writer, said: "There is a large body of what we used to think of as essential reading in Australian literature that is no longer readily available."

Novels that have won the Miles Franklin, the country's most prestigious literary award, but are now out of print include Thea Astley's The Acolyte, David Ireland's The Glass Canoe, Peter Mathers's Trap and Tom Flood's Oceana Fine.

Malouf added that classic works by Randolph Stow, Christina Stead and the poets Douglas Stewart and Francis Webb were also out of print.

He said this decline was partly driven by "readers defining themselves in a more global way. People define themselves as belonging more to a time than to a place".

The effect of this "was a huge impoverishment of people's sense of the particular, and what writing is about is the particular".

Another factor was that universities "no longer see themselves as having a responsibility to Australian literature". Commenting on revelations in The Australian this month that, from next year, there will just one chair in Australian literature nationwide, Malouf said: "That is appalling, and I am astounded at how quickly it has happened."

Malouf was speaking ahead of the launch of the Centre for the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature at Sydney's Macquarie University. The anthology will include writing from the late 18th century to the present and will be published in 2009. (A companion indigenous volume will be published next year.)

"Most people (involved with the anthology) have been shocked to discover how little Australian literature is taught or in print," said Nicholas Jose, the anthology's editor.

According to Jose, the following are out of print: three novels by Helen Garner, including the critically acclaimed Cosmo Cosmolino; six novels by Thea Astley; and nine works by Stead, including the seminal The Man Who Loved Children.

Eight works by Frank Moorhouse are out of print, as are four by Roger McDonald and two by Patrick White, our only literary Nobel Laureate.