The Outback Within: Journeys into the Australian Interior
What is it about the Australian outback? For nearly two centuries, narratives of outback journeys have been suffused with the aura of death. Why? It is not just that the desert is big, dry, hot and apparently empty. The outback is Australia’s “mythological crucible,” and journeys there have become rites of passage. It is where settler Australians go to die and perhaps be reborn. This book explores the landscape of this evolving national mythology. It argues that a more conscious engagement with the process of symbolic death and rebirth is needed for Australians to enter into a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationship to the land and its Indigenous people.
Mark Byrne is an environmentalist and writer. He has a PhD in Religious Studies, and is the author of Myths of Manhood: The Hero in Jungian Mythology and The Essence of Zen.
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