From aphasia to a celebration in language : diasporic writers opening up dialogue between and within cultures

In a recent media interview the prize winning author Christos Tsiolkas referred to the ‘moment of hope’ generated by ‘the possibilities of multiculturalism’ in 1990’s which enabled him to emerge as an Australian writer even though he had a ‘non-Australian surname’ (Brown 2010). He lamented the fact that currently Australia is ‘sliding backwards’ by not encouraging literary work by those ‘whose heritage is from elsewhere.’ This chapter is aimed at showing that the polyphonic discourse of writers in Australia, who have a Greek heritage, is worthy of wider recognition beyond the narrow limits imposed by Australian literary circles which have not sufficiently acknowledged multicultural literary texts as is evidenced by the lack or absence of their presence in libraries, bookshops, and writer’s festivals.