I became a little intrigued by the idea of what constitutes ‘Australian’ writing recently, after listening to the topic hotly debated by an Adelaide Writers’ Week panel last month. Chloe Hooper, Michelle De Kretser, Robert Dessaix and Malcolm Knox had come together to talk about the Macquarie Anthology of Australian Literature (which De Kretser and Dessaix were included in). Dessaix provocatively argued that while the anthology is a fine one, it’s somewhat redundant in an age of globalisation, when national identities and national cultures are more difficult to define. A definitively ‘Australian’ culture, he argued, no longer really exists – something he partially blamed on post-war diversity and the incursions of American culture.

‘There’s nothing distinctive about us,’ he said. ‘There’s a hierarchy. England and America can do whatever they like. Everyone else has to do something distinctive.’ Knox agreed, saying that The Slap, which will be published in the UK, came up against those kinds of difficulties when looking for a publisher – that it was about suburban life in the Western world, rather than the exotic settings of the outback or a coastal surfing town. ‘In The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas is in Melbourne writing about his world in Melbourne with the confidence of Philip Roth writing about his world in New York. He’s about to challenge that view that Robert has just put.’

Hooper and De Kretser passionately argued for the contemporary, diverse, definition of Australian literature – as something that can encompass De Kretser’s The Hamilton Case, set in Sri Lanka, and Dessaix’s engagement with the wider world in books like his latest, Arabesques. And, of course, more typically ‘Australian’ books like Hooper’s masterpiece of reportage on a Palm Island death in custody, The Tall Man. ‘I feel proud to be in an anthology of Australian literature,’ said the Sri-Lankan born De Kretser. ‘It does give pleasure to some people and make them feel like they’re finally accepted as being Australian.’

Asked in a later Writers’ Week session if she felt part of a body of ‘Australian writing’, Charlotte Wood said, ‘I really like it when people say my work is very Australian.’ She said that her recent anthology, Brothers and Sisters (which includes Nam Le writing his version of the story behind the Salt nightclub murders) has often been described in that fashion, though ‘there’s no kangaroos or bush settings, nothing distinctive you can put your finger on as Australian.’

And the current Miles Franklin longlist seems to be leaning towards a wider definition of ‘Australian life in any of its phases’. Peter Carey’s longlisted Parrott and Olivier in America is only tenuously linked to Australia (by its convict narrator).

‘I do think our notions of Australianness are now broad enough to admit all sorts of things,’ said James Bradley in a discussion about the longlist on his blog. Delia Falconer concurred: ‘Having a wider sense of the world, and seeing ourselves as players in it, with authority to write about it even without Australian characters or setting, is, I would argue, also very “Australian”.