In 1904, Beatrice Grimshaw travelled to the Pacific islands, documenting her tour of Fiji in a book-length travel narrative, From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands (1907) (subsequently re-published as Fiji and its Possibilities [1907]). Her book makes scant reference to indentured Indian labour and focuses instead on the amiable Fijian as reformed cannibal. The point of this essay is that the Australian literary tradition must be read with clear-sighted and unflinching appraisal of its unsavoury elements (and Grimshaw's blatant racism provides an example of such) as much as it lauds its achievements. To do so offers a way forward for Australian literature as it navigates a tradition of denial and silence on key aspects of its colonial past.