Merlinda Bobis

How wise is it to write or speak about a novel-in-waiting? In three lectures, Merlinda Bobis writes about researching and writing her first novel, Fish-Hair Woman, which was published as her third novel because it took seventeen years to finish it. She validates the writer’s ‘peculiar creative research’ within academia where theorising about literature seems to have more currency than producing it. She argues that all rigorous research in any discipline is creative and humanising. She discusses mythmaking and the transformation of stories using the quest model, and concludes with a detailed examination of ‘the architecture of a dream’, disassembling the nuts and bolts of fiction.

Collection of critical essays and creative works: Outcome of four-year collaborative research project between University of Wollongong, Australia and University of Vigo, Spain in collaboration with co-editor Belén Martín-Lucas.