Anna Rutherford (27 November 1932 – 21 February 2001) was an Australian-born academic and publisher, who helped to establish the field of

post-colonial literature Postcolonial literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries, originating from all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the colonization and subsequent dec ...

in Europe.

Biography

Rutherford was born in Australia in Mayfield, Newcastle, New South Wales. From 1968 to 1996 she was Director of the Commonwealth Literature Centre at the

University of Aarhus Aarhus University (, abbreviated AU) is a public research university. Its main campus is located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Group, the Guild, and Utr ...

, Denmark, where she introduced African and

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED''), the term ''West Indian'' in 1597 described the indigenous inhabitants of the West In ...

courses, organising in 1971 the first European conference on the

British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an international association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire The B ...

novel. In 1979, she founded ''Kunapipi: Journal of Postcolonial Writing & Culture'' and was its editor until her death. The name derives from

Kunapipi Kunapipi, also spelt Gunabibi, ('womb') is a mother goddess and the patron deity of many heroes in Australian Aboriginal mythology. Story Kunapipi gave birth to human beings as well as to most animals and plants. Now a vague, otiose, spiritua ...

, a

mother goddess A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, ...

Aboriginal Australian mythology Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology is the sacred spirituality represented in the stories performed by Aboriginal Australians within each of the language groups across Australia in their ceremonies. Aboriginal spirituality includes ...

. Rutherford also founded and was director of the small publishing company Dangaroo Press. In 1996 an edited collection, ''A talent(ed) digger'', was published in Rutherford's memory.

Works

* (ed. with Donald Hannah) ''Commonwealth Short Stories''. London: Edward Arnold, 1971. * (ed. with Kirsten Holst Petersen) ''Cowries and Kobos: the West African oral tale and short story''. Mundelstrup, Denmark: Dangaroo Press, 1981. * ''Silas Marner: Notes''. Harlow: Longman, 1981. ''York Notes'', 98. * ''George Eliot, Middlemarch: Notes''. Harlow: Longman, 1985. ''York Notes'', 260. * (ed. with Kirsten Holst Petersen) ''A Double Colonization: Colonial and Post-colonial Women's Writing''. Mundelstrup, Denmark; Oxford: Dangaroo Press, 1986. * (ed.) ''Aboriginal Culture Today''. Sydney: Dangaroo Press, 1988. * (ed. with Kirsten Holst Petersen) ''Displaced Persons''. Sydney: Dangaroo Press, 1988. * (ed. with

Hena Maes-Jelinek Hena Maes-Jelinek (1929 – 8 July 2008) was a Czech-born Belgian literary scholar. She has been called "one of the founding mothers of the study of Commonwealth Literature and, later, Postcolonial studies in Europe", who "pioneered the study of C ...

and Kirsten Holst Petersen) ''A Shaping of Connections: Commonwealth literature studies, then and now: essays in honour of A.N. Jeffares''. Sydney, N.S.W.: Dangaroo Press, 1989. * (ed. with Kirsten Holst Petersen) ''Chinua Achebe: a celebration''. Oxford: Heinemann, 1990. * (ed. with Kirsten Holst Petersen) ''On Shifting Sands: new art and literature from South Africa''. Earlsdon: Dangaroo Press, 1991. * (ed.) ''From Commonwealth to Post-colonial''. Sydney; Coventry: Dangaroo, 1992. * (ed.) ''Populous Places: Australia's cities and towns''. Sydney; Coventry: Dangaroo, 1992. * (ed. with Shirley Chew) ''Unbecoming Daughters of the Empire''. Sydney, N.S.W.: Dangaroo Press, 1993. * (ed. with Lars Jensen and Shirley Chew) ''Into the Nineties: post-colonial women's writing''. Armidale, N.S.W.: Dangaroo Press, 1994. * (ed. with

Susheila Nasta Susheila Nasta (born 1953), is a British critic, editor, academic and literary activist. She is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literatures at Queen Mary University of London, and founding editor of '' Wasafiri'', the UK's leading magazine f ...

) ''Tiger's Triumph: Celebrating Sam Selvon''. Armidale, N.S.W.; Hebden Bridge: Dangaroo, 1995. * (ed. with Anne Collett and Lars Jensen) ''Teaching Post-colonialism and Post-colonial Literatures''. Aarhus, Denmark; Oakville, Conn.: Aarhus University Press, 1997. * (ed. with James Wieland) ''War: Australia's Creative Response''. St. Leonards, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1997.

References

1932 births 2001 deaths Australian publishers (people) Literary scholars {{Australia-writer-stub