Writing the North-West, past and present: The 1930s fiction and drama of Henrietta Drake-Brockman

Abstract

This article explores some of the fiction produced by Western Australian writer Henrietta Drake-Brockman in the 1930s. Drake-Brockman was the author of numerous novels, plays, short stories and reviews. Much of her work was set in Western Australia and she was particularly concerned to tell stories of the past and present of the North-West. She dealt with numerous issues of public concern in 1930s Australia, but this article focuses on the ways in which Drake-Brockman�s fiction engaged with questions of Australian identity and the nature of Australian race relations.