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Notes
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Dedication: For Toly.
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Author's note: Inspired by all of the beauty that comes from having an ancient homeland that is deeply loved by those who guard it, and especially by my countrymen, Murrandoo Yanner and Clarence Waldon.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
- Braille.
- Large print.
- Dyslexic edition.
Works about this Work
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Conceptualising Irish-Aboriginal Writing
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 36 no. 2 2021;'This article considers some of the reasons why Irish-Australian literature has not been a significant trajectory within Australian literary studies and what it might offer if it were. Since the colonial era, Irish difference has been both recalcitrant and assimilable but, in the wake of Federation in 1901, Australian literature was concerned with the production of a national tradition and Irishness served to differentiate Australianness from Britishness. This article is concerned, then, with retrieving Irish difference. It extends my longstanding interest in Indigenous Australian literatures by analysing the representation of Irish Australians in Indigenous Australian writing, particularly moments of solidarity between the Irish and Indigenous Australians. After looking briefly at representations of colonial relations between the Irish and Aboriginal Australians in Jack Davis’ 1979 play Kullark and Eric Willmot’s historical novel Pemulwuy (1989), this article offers a reading of a minor scene in Alexis Wright’s Miles Franklin Literary Award-winning novel Carpentaria, published in 2006, as a way of exploring such representations in the contemporary era. This article is not trying to generate a new category for the field of Australian literary studies. Rather, it follows a seam within the Australian literary tradition that imagines generative forms of allegiance that may complicate existing conceptions of the Australian literary field.'
Source: Abstract.
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Jazz Money
Maddee Clark
(interviewer),
2021
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 11-17 September 2021; 'Poet Jazz Money talks about how Alexis Wright’s novel Carpentaria has inspired her work and paved the way for other Indigenous writers. By Maddee Clark.' -
From Carpentaria to The Swan Book : Finding a Voice to Narrate and Resist the Threat of Extinction in Alexis Wright’s Latest Work
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: E-rea : Revue D'etudes Anglophones , vol. 18 no. 2 2021; 'In 2003, Australian environmental historian Tom Griffiths was commissioned by the Australian Academy of Humanities to address what should be the national research priority of an “Environmentally Sustainable Australia”. He delivered a perhaps circumstantially upbeat speech describing the period both as “a critical and exciting time in environmental scholarship” (Griffiths). He said the increasing awareness of an impending global environmental crisis coincided with a sense of “inhabit[ing] a promising moment in the evolution of disciplinary knowledge”. Griffiths cited the editors of a 1999 anthology of humanistic studies of the environment who identified “systemic socioeconomic and cultural causes” (Conway, Keniston, and Marx 6) as being the most pressing environmental problems, and acknowledged that the solutions to these problems lay beyond the reach of scientific or technical knowledge. In his view, “stories” were what changed the way people acted and the way they used available knowledge. Having described Australian history as “a giant experiment in ecological crisis and management, sometimes a horrifying concentration of environmental damage and cultural loss, and sometimes a heartening parable of hope and learning”, he told his audience, “the stories we live by determine the future. So, in harnessing the power of narrative, in listening to, rediscovering and generating true stories, we change the world” (Griffiths).' (Introduction) -
Shifting Timescapes and the Significance of the Mine in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 29 October vol. 35 no. 2 2020;'This article proposes a reading of Alexis Wright’s epic novel Carpentaria that focuses on the mine and its impacts as central to any understanding of the novel. Carpentaria offers a stark portrayal of how resource extraction is intimately linked with both colonisation and capitalism and is sustained through state-sanctioned violence and nationalist ideologies. This article explores the dichotomy between Normal Phantom, who views mining as just another phenomenon in the vast expanse of time, and his son Will, who fights the mine on the understanding that it is an unprecedented threat to the survival of the Waanyi people and their Country. Although I suggest that this wider debate, and the forms of agency it represents, remains unresolved in the novel, I conclude with a meditation on the critically neglected character of Kevin who complicates the novel’s uneasy resolution. In the light of ongoing debates about the Adani mine, Carpentaria is more relevant than ever.' (Publication abstract)
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Alexis Wright's Publishing History in Three Contexts : Australian Aboriginal, National, and International
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 33 no. 1 2019; (p. 107-124)'In order to better understand and appreciate Alexis Wright's publishing history, it is important to first place it in the context of the publishing history of Australian Aboriginal literature. Only then can one properly situate it in the larger context of Australian literature. Finally, for full effect, Wright's publishing history should be placed in the context of the international literary marketplace.' (Introduction)
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When the Narrator's Art Matches the Magical Storytelling
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 19 August 2006; (p. 22)
— Review of Carpentaria 2006 single work novel -
Calming Influence in Balance Fraught with Pain
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 2 September 2006; (p. 13)
— Review of Carpentaria 2006 single work novel -
Phantasmagorical Tale Fills a Legendary Landscape
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 16-17 September 2006; (p. 32-33)
— Review of Carpentaria 2006 single work novel -
Small-Town Dreaming
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 30 September 2006; (p. 10)
— Review of Carpentaria 2006 single work novel -
A Weird Mob
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 10 October vol. 124 no. 6541 2006; (p. 70)
— Review of Carpentaria 2006 single work novel -
The Call of the Claypans
2006
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 9-10 September 2006; (p. 30-31) -
From Here to Carpentaria
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 9 September 2006; (p. 26-27) -
Dispatches from the Reviewing Front ...
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , October vol. 1 no. 2 2006; (p. 22) Matchett comments on reviews of the three books listed here as subjects. -
A List Both Short and Sweet
2007
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 28-29 April 2007; (p. 37) -
On Writing Carpentaria
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Heat , no. 13 (New Series) 2007; (p. 79-95) The Canberra Times , 23 June 2007; (p. B4)Wright describes what drove her to write her novel Carpentaria, stating that 'For a long time while I was exploring how to write Carpentaria, I tried to come to some understanding of two principal questions: firstly, how to understand the idea of Indigenous people living with the stories of all the times of this country, and secondly, how to write from this perspective.'
Awards
- 2011 Shortlisted Australian Centre Literary Awards — The Kate Challis RAKA Award
- 2010 inaugural winner Vision Australia Braille Book of the Year Award
- 2008 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2007 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
- 2007 winner Queensland Premier's Literary Awards — Best Fiction Book Best Fiction Book
- Gulf of Carpentaria area, Far North Queensland, Queensland,
- Gulf of Carpentaria area, Far North Queensland, Queensland,