The weight of a human heart: short story collection and critical exegesis

The creative component of this thesis is The Weight of a Human Heart, a collection of twenty short stories written in a variety of different styles, and utilising a number of diverse settings, from Africa to China to Australia. The collection is comprised of an equal number of realist and formally experimental short stories, including stories in the form of book reviews, homework assignments and graphs and charts. The critical exegesis maps out the major influences on The Weight of the Human Heart in the context of a survey of the Australian short story, an examination of metafiction, and a discussion of the work of James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov and the Oulipo.