Steam Pigs Explained

Steam Pigs
Author:	Melissa Lucashenko
Country:	Australia
Language:	English
Genre:	Novel
Published:	1997 (University of Queensland Press)
Media Type:	Print (hardback)
Pages:	245
Isbn:	978-0-702-22935-0
Oclc:	1088063432

Steam Pigs is the 1997 debut novel by Melissa Lucashenko. It concerns Sue Wilson, a young Murri woman, who explores her Indigenous identity while living in Brisbane.

Reception

A review in The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education wrote that "Steam Pigs takes us into the world of today's "untermensch" ...", and that it "..is a woman's book set in a very particular place and at a very particular time; but it confronts themes that are eternal and universal.".^[1] A Lesbians on the Loose review called it "...as unsentimental as it is empathetic.".^[2]

Steam Pigs has also been reviewed by the Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature,^[3] Social Alternatives,^[4] Australian Literary Studies,^[5] Queensland Review,^[6] and Ilha do Desterro.^[7]

An excerpt appears in the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature.^[8]

Awards

• 1998 Dobbie Literary Award winner^[9]
• 1998 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (South-East Asia and Pacific Region) – shortlist for Best First Book^[10]
• 1999 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards shortlist

Further reading

• Book: Exploring Suburbia: The Suburbs in the Contemporary Australian Novel . A New Generation Perpetuates the Anti-Suburban Tradition: Melissa Lucashenko's Steam Pigs (1997) and A. L. McCann's Subtopia (2005) . Nathanael O'Reilly . 2012 . Teneo Press . 978-1934-8-4494-6 .

External links

• Library holdings of Steam Pigs
• "Re-writing Indigeneity, Questioning Postcoloniality", Maryanne Twomey (2003) - thesis that includes a study of Steam Pigs

Notes and References

1. December 1999 . Steam Pigs . Sam Watson . The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education . Cambridge University Press . 27 . 2 . 56 . 31 August 2021.
2. Sylvia Martin . November 1997 . between the covers . 29 . Lesbians on the Loose . 8 . 11 . Frances Rand, Barbara Farrelly . 31 August 2021.
3. 2010 . Exploring Indigenous Identity in Suburbia: Melissa Lucashenko's Steam Pigs . Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature . Although Lucashenko presents the treatment of Indigenous Australians by non-Indigenous Australians in a rather negative manner, she also candidly addresses problems within the Indigenous community, ... In Steam Pigs, Lucashenko explicitly depicts suburbia as co-occupying Indigenous land; she is the first Australian novelist to do so and thus her novel is radical on that count alone. . Association for the Study of Australian Literature (Australia) . 10 . 1447-8986 . 31 August 2021.
4. 1998 . New Indigenous writing (subscription required) . Christine Watson . Social Alternatives . 51–53 . 0155-0306 .
5. 1998 . Subdivisions of Suburbia: the Politics of Place in Melissa Lucashenko's 'Steam Pigs' and Amanda Lohrey's 'Camille's Bread.'. . Margaret Henderson . Australian Literary Studies . 1837-6479 . 1 . 72.
6. 2018 . The beach as (hu)man limit in Gold Coast narrative fiction . Kelly Palmer . Queensland Review . Cambridge University Press . 25 . 1 . 149–162 . 10.1017/qre.2018.13 . 150353497 . 31 August 2021.
7. 2016 . Resistance and sovereignty in some recent Australian Indigenous women's novels . Carole Ferrier . Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies . 0101-4846 . . 69 . 2 . 17–31.
8. Book: Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature . Melissa Lucashenko (b. 1967) From Steam Pigs . . 2009 . Allen & Unwin . 978-1-74175-440-7 . 31 August 2021.
9. Web site: 2018 Nita B Kibble Literary Awards For Women Writers: History of Shortlisted Authors - 1998: Dobbie Recipient . perpetual.com.au . Perpetual Limited . 31 August 2021.
10. Web site: Melissa Lucashenko. 2021-08-31. AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. en.