Tasmanian Visions
Landscapes in Writing, Art and Photography
by Roslynn D. Haynes

Tasmanian Visions, by the author of Seeking the Centre: The Australian Desert in Literature, Art and Film, traces the cultural reasons why particular landscapes have been privileged, reviled or ignored over the two centuries since Europeans arrived. Writings about Tasmania, from the records of the early explorers and settlers, the first Australian novel, Quintus Servinton, and Marcus Clarke's blockbuster His Natural Life, through the poetry of James McAuley, Gwen Harwood and Vivien Smith, to the novels of Christopher Koch, Richard Flanagan and Danielle Wood, indicate how these landscapes have both influenced, and been mythologised by, writers.

Artists, too, have played a central role in teaching us to 'see'. Ninety-nine full-colour art reproductions trace the visual story of landscape from the delicate watercolours and engravings of the French voyagers to the innovative representations of wilderness in the superb photographs of Peter Dombrovskis and his successors and the stark outrage of contemporary environmentalist painters.

This book is also for those seeking to understand the nature and needs of wilderness. It asks if we can move beyond wilderness to an appreciation of country, a concept which Indigenous peoples have understood for many centuries and are prepared to teach us.

Published by Polymath Press, Tasmanian Visions will be available after 15 October 2006 at
RRP AUD$55. You can buy the book online here at $AU 48.00 (plus postage) by clicking on the links to your right.