Karen Wyld

Yeah, and that's part of my study where I'm trying to

emphasise how a lot of times when reviewers and academics call a First Nations book magic realist, then it's not, it's actually realism, but the reader is unable to understand that, so they just chuck the label magic realism on, which is a criticism that a lot of First Nations peoples all around the world have, that people mislabel their work.

It's reading while white, which is a continued problem here in Australia where a lot of academics and reviewers and people in the literature industry are still really struggling to understand how they read work through a white lens and through their biased worldviews.

And they do it all the time.

I mean, like, you pick up reviews on Indigenous works and there's always words in there like mythology and dream time.

Even when the writer isn't writing those things, white reviewers need to put those words in there.

It's like they don't engage.

And there's nothing much us writers can do about that.

It's about them.

They need to do it.

That's really tricky and that's something that I'm really coming to terms with in this research program from an ethical point of view.

I mean, I write magic realism and there's no denying that that's what I write.

But I know there's been a lot of pushback from writers saying, well, don't put that label on my work.

I know Isabella Londe pushed back a bit.

So instead, what I'm trying to do, I think, is reclaim that word a little bit of like, this is what magic realism is from a non-want point of view.

Just, you know, stop trying to mislabel it or, you know, try to understand it.

Yes, exactly.

And be careful about what.

what values you're pushing by that labelling.

Like, are you devaluing your work because it's not by an author from your, a non-white author?