"Australian fiction, like that of all nations, is written, published,
received and read in the context of a literary canon, both national and
transnational. In regards to women's fiction in Australia, this canon is
predominantly composed of writers from two particular eras: authors of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (like Henry Handel Richardson, Miles
Franklin, Katharine Susannah Prichard and Christina Stead) and women writers
who came to prominence during the 1980s (like Helen Garner, Kate Grenville,
Elizabeth Jolley, Barbara Hanrahan, Jessica Anderson and Beverley Farmer ... The second-wave feminist movement was responsible for the creation of this
dual canon: in the first case, due to a desire to recover and reclaim women
writers of the past, and in the second, due to a desire to celebrate and explore
contemporary Australian women's fiction. Indeed, it is the preoccupation of
second-wave feminism with uncovering and celebrating women's occluded
stories that underlies the current critical focus on realist and experiential aspects
of Australian women's fiction ... Among those whose work has been occluded by the critical attention given to the canonical figures of Australian women's writing, Wendy Scarfe is indicative
in various ways.
