Dear world: on behalf of the Australian people, I’d like to apologise for Christos Tsiolkas.

In my experience, one of the most irritating things about simply being Australian is that, whenever you make any initial attempt to participate in any sort of cultural enterprise alongside anyone from virtually anywhere in the Western world, you must first thwart and dismantle the preconceptions of parochialism attributed to Australians in general before you can expect others to take you seriously. The global assumption — reinforced by the “colourful” behaviour of so many Australians abroad — is that the nation itself lacks a sense of cultural sophistication and that, as a result, the people of Australia do not recognise cultural sophistication when they encounter it either within their own country or elsewhere. The assumption isn’t true, of course, or at least not on any essentialist basis; but it is widespread and resilient, and its persistence has long been a source of grief for those who champion Australian culture: “How can we best prove to the world that Australian culture is worthy of serious attention and respect?” Within Australia itself, the assumption is understood to have historically fuelled a phenomenon known as the cultural cringe: a reflexive “awareness” amongst Australian artists and their audiences that Australian art of any type is inherently inferior to the art of others — that, indeed, Australian artists “have something to prove” in the first place. Continue reading →