Interview with Brian Castro made by Marilyne Brun on 24 November 2008

Abstract: This interview with contemporary Australian writer Brian Castro addresses a number of themes and concepts that are central to his critical work and fiction. In the interview, Castro discusses his oeuvre as a whole, providing insights into the starting point for his first eight novels. He comments on the concepts of transgression, hybridity, polyphonia, cosmopolitanism and play, underlining the central significance of grammar, ethics and aesthetics in his work. The interview also includes reflections on the development of Asian Australian studies and the importance of translating novels. In the final sections of the interview, Castro discusses the relation between his critical work and his novels and reflects on the common conflation of the novelist and the theorist in much literary criticism.

Keywords: Brian Castro, Australian Literature, Literary Theory, Aesthetics

Copyright © Marilyne Brun and Brian Castro 2011. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the author and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged.