Oral Cultures and the Empire of Literature

Mudrooroo Narogin's (Colin Johnson's) novel Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World^ is a hybrid cultural artefact, and can be situated between two discourses each of which are generally regarded as mutually exclusive. It is a novel - that is, its form is derived from European traditions of literate discourse - which nonetheless seeks to articulate the breadth and riches of non-book, pre-literate oral culture. It is an Australian novel by an Aboriginal writer, and thus presages the possible shape of Commonwealth writing to come.