l�/IL(/es /-/e/lf11iques / l-lelle11ic S!tulies MIGRANT WRITING IN MULTICULTURAL AUSTRALIA: THE CASE OF THE GREEKS George Kanarakis* RÉSUMÉ A travers les écrits des Grecs de l'Australie, cet article examine la place de la litterature immi grante en relation avec son appartenance soit à la litteralure nationale australienne, soit à la littera ture nationale du pays d'origine (pour des écrits dans une autre langue que l'anglais). Il est montré que tant et aussi longtemps que cette litterature est classifiée et analysée séparément d'un corpus national -australien ou du pays d'origine -, celle-ci demeurera une sous-catégorie. En outre, cette sous-catcgorisation diminue non seulement l'importance de la litterature des immigrants mais aussi le corpus littéraire national. Et cela parce que peu impore à quel corpus national appartient un auteur, il sera examiné comme faisant parie d'un noyau central et non pas d'un groupe minoritire. ABSTRACT Through the literary writings of the Greeks in Australia, this paper examines the position of migrants' writing in relation to te national body of literature to which it belongs - whether this be Australian literature or, arguably for works written in languages other than English, to the national literature of the writer's homeland . lt is shown that to whichever body the literature belongs it will remain a sub-categor as long as it is classified and examined separetely to the main body of the li terature. Furthennore. sub-categorization diminishes not only the stature of migrnt's literature, but also the central body itself. Thus whichever national literature a writer belongs to, his works must be examined as a part ofits central core and not as part of the writing ofa minority group. Although in this article l wi l l use the literature of the Greeks i n Australia (frst generation migrants and their children) as a paradigm of literature written by migrants, the arguments 1 wil l develop can be applied to the li terar writings of any migrant group fom a non-English speaking background, cerainly in rela tion to Australia and to varying degrees, depending on each country, to the homeland. The fct that the concept of centres and peripheries has become the theme of conferences, such as that of the Second National Conference of Modem Greek Studes held recently (25-28 September 1 994) by the Mode Greek Studies Association of Austral ia and New Zealand, which included papers on the litera ture of the Greeks in Australia under this thematic umbrella, shows that there exist, or that people believe there to exist centres and peripheries either aect ing this l iterature  and by extension, the l iteratures of other migrant groups  fom without or existing within itŒ Following and studying the l iterature of the Greeks in Australia  over the last nearly twenty years as it has developed wi thin the social and cultural envi ron ment o this country, f or example, 1 have core to believe that one, if not the, *Chari.., S111r1 t:nivrr.itr (A11�1rali11) 17