The literary field and contemporary trade-book publishing in Australia: Literary and genre fiction

Abstract

This article examines fiction as a major sector of trade-book publishing in exploring the place of Australian publishing within a globalised industry and marketplace. It traces the function of ‘literary fiction’ as industry category and locus of symbolic value and national cultural capital, mapping its structures and dynamics in Australia, including the impact of digital technologies. In policy terms, literature and publishing remain significant sites of national and state government investment. Following Bourdieu’s model of the field of cultural production, the literary/publishing field is presented as exemplary rather than as a high-cultural exception in the cultural economy. Taking Thompson’s use of field theory to examine US and UK trade publishing into account, it analyses the industry structures governing literary and genre fiction in Australia, demonstrating the field’s logic as determined by the unequal distribution of large, medium-sized and small publishers. This analysis reveals distinctive features of the Australian situation within a transnational context.