Contemporary Literary Criticism | Butler, Robert Olen - Helen Heritage August (review date August 1994)

Helen Heritage August (review date August 1994)

SOURCE: August, Helen Heritage. “Over the Wall.” Australian Book Review, no. 163 (August 1994): 52-3.

[In the following review, August offers a positive assessment of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, complimenting Butler for undertaking the challenge of writing from the perspective of various Vietnamese people.]

Not so long ago I submitted to a literary journal a story that was narrated by a Javanese woman recounting her experiences when, as a fourteen year old girl, revolution swept her country. The story was rejected, the main reason being that the editor felt uncomfortable with the idea of the first-person narrative being written from the perspective of someone from a different culture.

I disagree with this view. It is a view that I believe restricts a writer to recreating entirely from her own experience, gender, place, and heredity. Surely, it is the down-side of...

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