The outsider within : a reflection on notions of alienation within life writing

Authors relating their experiences as outsiders is a recurring theme within the genre of life writing. Focusing on the work of the South Australian author and artist, Barbara Hanrahan (1939-1991, and Ian Abdulla (1947-2011), an Australian indigenous artist from the Riverland region, also in South Australia, this article seeks to explore whether feelings of alienation can occur just as easily in the place where one has grown up, where one supposedly ‘belongs’. Both Abdulla and Hanrahan, through their differing approaches to life writing, offer an insight into the complex dynamic between place, belonging and identity.