Empire Day : a novel and critical commentary

Empire Day: a novel and critical commentary consists of my novel, Empire Day, and a critical commentary discussing the process of writing it, and the problems of form and theme with which the narrative engaged. The novel documents the military service of conscripts fighting in an unnamed, undefined colonial conflict on the eve of independence. The novel is split into two narrative strands, one presented from the perspective of Martin Welles, a war poet, and the other from the perspective of Amanda Budden, a university friend of Martin’s who has given up on her own writing. Against a backdrop of violence, they struggle to find a moral standpoint that corresponds to their status as invaders, while at the same time they uncomfortably avoid trauma from their past. The commentary addresses the issues of style, theme, character, setting and method. It surveys the war literature which provides context and conversation for Empire Day. The commentary includes entries from a journal maintained during the writing of the novel, which record events in the development of the fiction.