The exploration and settlement of new lands inspire exciting and moving narratives that develop into a national literature. Students interrogate the concept of Australian fiction and the striking elements that define it, both from the perspective of the settlers and from the indigenous people. A range of long and short fiction is examined from the nineteenth-century writers who were predominantly Anglo-Celtic through increasing numbers of writers from Europe and indigenous cultures in the twentieth century to twenty-first century writers from a multitude of lands, including the African and Indian continents as well as the Asian region. Students test a range of critical and theoretical approaches in their analyses of Australian fiction.