Navigating Uncertainty - S01E11 - Australia’s Earliest Great War Novels

Australia’s earliest Great War novels were more than just first drafts of the Anzac legend, argues UNSW Canberra’s Dr Christina Spittel. Reading and writing were part of the war effort, and these very early books, brittle and virtually forgotten now, offered themselves as companions through what they openly acknowledged to be difficult, trying, uncertain times: they offered moral support and guidance, they made room for anxieties and insecurities and they unfolded a vision of total war.