Australian outback literature of the 20th century
Many poets and novelists and specialised writers (missionaries, anthropologists, historians etc.) have written about the Australian outback from first-hand experience. These works frequently address race relations in Australia, often from a personal point of view, with Australian Aboriginal people used as a theme or subject. In the first part of the 20th century, much of Australia was still being explored by white Australians and their encounters with Aborigines who had had little or no contact or knowledge of the settlers were still taking place well after World War II. First contact There has been some little attempt on the part of European writers to speak up on behalf of the Aborigines. One writer in particular, Western Australian Donald Stuart, has made the effort. Contact between Indigenous Australian and settlers and the early experience of native tribesmen and women with the new arrivals involved challenges. Another writer who looked at this period is Brian Penton, whose novel Landtakers recounts a disastrous meeting between Indigenous Australian tribespeople and European settlers. 1900–1930 The 20th century saw the opening up of northern and western Australia, as well as the far reaches of the established colonies of New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland, and