Green or Greed? Review of The Littoral Zone, by CA Cranston and Robert Zeller

Abstract

There are a number of reasons why this is an important collection of essays. First, it challenges the hegemonic status of the United States as the locus of contemporary 'nature writing'. Second, while continuing the interrogation of Aboriginal decimation and displacement consequent on settler-invasion, it extends that ethical inquiry to encompass the 'extra-human world'. Third, in explaining the extent and nature of the Australian littoral, it posits more complex 'zones' of the Australian imaginary than the often discretely represented bush, city and beach; and finally, it draws our attention to both new and neglected works and writers (as well as to poems and prose pieces by more established ones) in order to suggest a much larger and stronger tradition of Australian nature writing than has generally been acknowledged.