Julia Leigh disappoints if one expects a figure from her dark fantasy novels. Still, in the bright afternoon of Beijing's One Way Street Library, the queen of "Australian Gothic," with her dark hair and pale face, does not seem to quite belong in daylight.
Here to discuss her two books, The Hunter (1999) and Disquiet (2008), as well as Australian writing, Leigh has been named "one of the 21 writers for the 21st century" by London's Observer newspaper.
Born in 1970 in Sydney, Australia, her debut award-winning novel The Hunter tells of M, a man who's singular ambition is to track a mythical beast, the Tasmanian Devil, in that area's lonely wilderness, and has been described as being in the best tradition of Tasmanian gothic by critics.
Interested in the natural world, she likes to put her characters in the wilderness. "But the value of nature has nothing to do with humans," she said.
She explained her intention in choosing the setting, character and the relationship between the two: the hunter is an isolated and alienated man, so it's no coincidence that he finds a relationship with barren landscapes.
A haunting family drama tightly packed into a tense novella, Disquiet also uses a strong, unique location: a France chateau with gardens of precise avenues and trees.
Artifice and native
"For me it's unashamedly artificial, obviously artifice the formal garden, which tries to exert absolute control of the natural world," she said. "Even though it's a very demanding task, and requires constant maintenance."
The characters in Disquiet wear masks of polite social politics and behavior, she explained. One woman endures a terrible loss a stillborn baby, which she brings home.
"It is what people allow you to do in Australia, but [it's] also a sacred time for a family," she continues. The woman refuses to bury the baby, but is unable address her tragic loss directly out of deference to "manners."
"The same maintenance and impossibility of controlling nature is reflected in the characters having rising emotional forces," Leigh observed.
"In both books setting was important to me, as a writer, to be a part of the great whole of the story and character," said Leigh.
She claimed she had no methodology in pulling all these strands together, and, referring to the label of "Tasmanian gothic," said that was simply something the critics came up with. "That is not something I particularly [agree with] maybe they are just looking for a way to describe it."
After setting her first novel in Australia's Tasmania Island and making the main character, Olivier, in her second novel French-Australian, "I probably have no interest in being a national representative," Leigh observed. "But at the same time, I am who I am."
The Hunter is grounded in a very unique place the Australian outback "but to me, I'm more interested in the hunting as an elemental drama," she explained.
"I'm interested in extinction, and also personal extinction, one's own death, which is something that struck a chord."
Early hunting parties were among the first examples of ritualistic human behavior, with ceremonial evidence from bear bones discovered in a prehistoric cave in Switzerland showing that hunters considered their own mortality a sacred part of the hunt.
"Often it's not good for authors to be concerned," Leigh replied, when asked if her work applies a universal sense of ecology extinction.
But she admitted her generation of authors has shifted from human-centric to eco-centric views of the world. "We changed ... realizing a totally different holistic system."
Cultural exchange
Exchanging views with Chinese writers from Australian Writers' Week by the Australian Embassy, she said there are not many contemporary Chinese books in the English-speaking world such as Australia, the UK and the US but the situation is changing.
"Previous the gatekeepers tended to be academic, and what they chose to translate is what we are able to read, because there were not many people fluent in Chinese. When many students are learning and [there are] many more foreigners who are capable of translation, there are more gates open," she said.
On this trip, she bought four books recommended by friends, including Fortress Besieged, Bi Feiyu's Three Sisters and works by Su Tong and Yan Lianke.
The Chinese editions of both The Hunter and Disquiet will be published by Shanghai99 Reader soon, "to see if they will resonate with Chinese writers."
Leigh also has two movies coming out this year, one an adaptation of The Hunter, starring Willem Defoe as M, the other Sleeping Beauty, her first feature as a writer and director, in which a woman takes a job as a "sleeping beauty" in contemporary Sydney.
"After that, I hope to write a novel, which is still a secret," she laughs.