ABSTRACT
In a discussion of multiculturalism in Australia, Jon Stratton and Ien Ang strike on a telling formulation when they describe the cultural practice of such policymaking as the production of “public fantasy-a collective narrative ction” of national identity (152). In this chapter, I borrow the notion of a collective narrative ction to explore the cultural practice of Australian book awards, which, by their text selections, make of individual literary works public fantasies and national narratives both collective (grouped choices within award categories or years) and cumulative (grouped choices over time).1 Attending to the winning titles of three national Australian book awards-the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards; the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards (PMLA); and the teen-choice Inky Awards for adolescent ction-makes clear a sustained interest in gender as part of desirable Australian subjectivity. The collective and cumulative narratives produced by these awards between 2010 (the rst year in which all three national prizes for adolescent ction were awarded) and 2012 suggest that Australian adolescence is dened rst and foremost by hegemonic masculinity. Troublingly, this denition is not only the norm but is also normative in recent Australian award-winning adolescent novels in which to strive for the hegemonic masculine ideal is sold as desirable.
