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'The new novel from the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Australian author Alexis Wright, in a limited edition hardcover.
'Praiseworthy is an epic set in the north of Australia, told with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned. In a small town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in following the dance of butterflies and scouring the internet to find out how she can seek repatriation for her Aboriginal/Chinese family to China. One of their sons, called Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide. The other, Tommyhawk, wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming white and powerful. This is a novel which pushes allegory and language to its limits, a cry of outrage against oppression and disadvantage, and a fable for the end of days.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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AustLit's One Millionth Record !!!
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Epigraph: I am not even dust. I am a dream... -Jorge Luis Borges
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Best of 2023 in Australian Reading
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2024;
— Review of Shirley 2023 single work novel ; Praiseworthy 2023 single work novel ; Search History 2023 single work novel ; Green Dot 2023 single work novel ; Songs for the Dead and the Living 2023 single work novel ; Notes on Her Colour 2023 single work novel ; Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens 2022 single work novel ; Crossing the Line 2023 single work autobiography ; Anam 2023 single work novel -
At 73, Australia’s Most Important Aboriginal Writer Is Making Her Mark
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: The New York Times , 4 February 2024;
— Review of Praiseworthy 2023 single work novel'Long before Alexis Wright was a towering figure in Australian letters, she took notes during community meetings in remote outback towns. Put to task by Aboriginal elders, her job was to take down their every word in longhand.' (Introduction)
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From Alexis Wright to Tony Birch and Evelyn Araluen: Powerful Books by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , January 2024;
— Review of Praiseworthy 2023 single work novel ; Edenglassie 2023 single work novel ; Women and Children 2023 single work novel ; Firelight 2023 selected work short story ; Harvest Lingo 2022 selected work poetry ; Close to the Subject : Selected Works 2023 selected work essay interview ; Dropbear 2021 selected work poetry essay ; The Yield 2019 single work novel -
The 17 Best Books of 2023
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 22 January 2024;
— Review of The Sitter 2023 single work novel ; Killing for Country : A Family Story 2023 multi chapter work criticism ; The Conversion 2023 single work novel ; The Vitals 2023 single work prose ; Right Story, Wrong Story : Adventures in Indigenous Thinking 2023 multi chapter work criticism ; Praiseworthy 2023 single work novel ; Edenglassie 2023 single work novel ; Women and Children 2023 single work novel ; The Art of Breaking Ice 2023 single work novel ; I'd Rather Not 2023 single work autobiography ; On Peter Carey : Writers on Writers 2023 single work biography ; New Australian Fiction 2023 2023 anthology short story ; Critic Swallows Book : Ten Years of the Sydney Review of Books 2023 anthology review essay -
Appraising the Pandemic (Or, the Virus Time of Global Warming)
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , December vol. 82 no. 4 2023; (p. 189-194) Meanjin Online 2023;
— Review of Praiseworthy 2023 single work novel
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Enraged, Tragic and Hopeful: Alexis Wright’s New Novel Praiseworthy Explores Aboriginal Sovereignty in the Shadow of the Anthropocene
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 4 April 2023;
— Review of Praiseworthy 2023 single work novelPraiseworthy is Alexis Wright’s most formidable act of imaginative synthesis yet. It is simultaneously a hero’s journey for an age of global warming, a devastating story of young love caught between two laws, and an extended elegy and ode to Aboriginal law and sovereignty.' (Introduction)
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The Question of the Future : Alexis Wright’s Expansive New Work
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 452 2023; (p. 37-38)
— Review of Praiseworthy 2023 single work novel 'An ochre-coloured haze has gathered permanently over the town of Praiseworthy somewhere in the Gulf country. It is composed of dust, soot, broken butterfly wings, memories, and grief – and it isn’t going anywhere. Meanwhile, on the ground, thousands of feral donkeys are being corralled into the town cemetery by an Indigenous leader called Cause Man Steel. Most call this man Planet because he is always banging on about the collapse of the planet.' (Introduction) -
Alexis Wright Praiseworthy
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 8-14 April 2023;
— Review of Praiseworthy 2023 single work novel'A few years ago I camped with my beloved in Jalmurark Campground, in Mangarayi and Yungman Country in the top end of the Northern Territory, near the property about which We of the Never Never was written by white woman Jeannie Gunn, who lived there for about a year. It was there that I was woken by the monstrous screams of feral donkeys, a noise that is used by sound designers all around the world whenever they need a terrifying, unearthly sound. And it was there I discovered for the first time that Australia has a feral donkey problem.' (Introduction)
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The Vision Thing
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 1-2 April 2023; (p. 9)
— Review of Praiseworthy 2023 single work novel 'Alexis Wright’s new novel sends up the ‘failed’ Northern Territory intervention. The trailblazing author talks politics, rejection and feral donkeys with ROSEMARY NEILL' -
A Total Horizon of Indigenous Experience
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 22-23 April 2023; (p. 16)
— Review of Praiseworthy 2023 single work novel -
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Alexis Wright’s Expansive New Work
Southbank
:
Australian Book Review, Inc.
,
2023
26167007
2023
single work
podcast
'In this week’s ABR Podcast, Tony Hughes-d’Aeth reviews Alexis Wright’s new novel, Praiseworthy. Expectations are high: after all, Wright is the only author to have won both the Miles Franklin Award and the Stella Prize. Praiseworthy, Hughes-d’Aeth argues, is a book unlike any other. Grounded in an Indigenous cosmology, combining realism with absurdism, it takes aim at its ‘one true enemy’: assimilation.'
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Alexis Wright in Conversation
Ivor Indyk
(interviewer),
2023
26349207
2023
single work
podcast
interview
'This episode features a live event recording taken of a conversation between Alexis Wright and Ivor Indyk, to celebrate the publication of Wright’s new novel, Praiseworthy.
'Alexis Wright is a remarkable writer, originally hailing from the from the Waanyi nation in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Her novel Carpentaria won the 2007 Miles Franklin award, and Wright was awarded the 2018 Stella Prize for her biography of “Tracker" Tilmouth. Praiseworthy is Wright’s fourth novel.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2024 shortlisted James Tait Black Memorial Prize
- 2024 shortlisted APA Book Design Awards — Best Designed Literary Fiction / Poetry Cover designed by Jenny Grigg.
- 2024 shortlisted The Stella Prize
- 2024 shortlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2023 winner Queensland Literary Awards — Fiction Book Award
- Northern Australia,