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Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Praiseworthy single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2023... 2023 Praiseworthy
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'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

  • AustLit's One Millionth Record !!!
  • Epigraph: I am not even dust. I am a dream... -Jorge Luis Borges

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Artarmon, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Giramondo Publishing , 2023 .
      image of person or book cover 3203088999652683339.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 736p.
      Note/s:
      • Published April 2023
      ISBN: 9781922725745
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,      :       New Directions ,       2024 .
      image of person or book cover 7555748822108149058.png
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 736p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 6 February 2024.
      ISBN: 9780811238014
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Works about this Work

y separately published work icon Alexis Wright Discussing Praiseworthy for Vision Australia Astrid Edwards (interviewer), 2024 27995007 2024 single work podcast interview

'Waanyi writer Alexis Wright is the only author to win the Stella Prize twice - the first time for Tracker and the second time for Praiseworthy.

'Alexis is also the author of the prize-winning novels Carpentaria and The Swan Book, as well as Take Power, an oral history of the Central Land Council; and Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory.

'Alexis was previously the Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne, and she is the inaugural winner of the Creative Australia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.

'This interview was recorded live for Vision Australia in March 2024, after Praiseworthy was longlisted for The Stella Prize.' (Production summary)

 
‘Perhaps the Great Australian Novel’ : Alexis Wright Wins Stella Prize for Second Time with Praiseworthy Kelly Burke , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 2 May 2024;

'The 73-year-old has won the $60,000 prize for Australian female and non-binary writers for her ‘genre-bending’ 736-page novel' 
Indigenous Author Alexis Wright Wins 2024 Stella Prize for Her Novel Praiseworthy Nicola Heath , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , May 2024;
Alexis Wright Becomes the First to Win the Stella Prize Twice, with Her ‘Hyper Real’ Novel of Aboriginal Sovereignty and Survival Julieanne Lamond , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 2 May 2024;

'Acclaimed Waanyi writer Alexis Wright has made Australian literary history by being the first author to win the Stella Prize twice. This time, it’s for Praiseworthy, her fourth novel – her first in more than a decade.'
Unruliness, Activism and Emotional Intensity: Your Guide to the 2024 Stella Prize Shortlist Julieanne Lamond , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 2 May 2024;

'For more than a decade now, the Stella Prize, an award celebrating Australian women’s writing, has been changing Australia’s literary landscape. It has taken a monkey wrench to the way literary esteem is bestowed in this country. Its annual whack has shifted the calibration of what kinds of books are valued.' (Introduction)
Enraged, Tragic and Hopeful: Alexis Wright’s New Novel Praiseworthy Explores Aboriginal Sovereignty in the Shadow of the Anthropocene Jane Gleeson-White , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 4 April 2023;
— Review of Praiseworthy Alexis Wright , 2023 single work novel

Praiseworthy 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)
The Question of the Future : Alexis Wright’s Expansive New Work Tony Hughes-d'Aeth , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 452 2023; (p. 37-38)
— Review of Praiseworthy Alexis Wright , 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 Claire G. Coleman , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 8-14 April 2023;
— Review of Praiseworthy Alexis Wright , 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)
The Vision Thing Rosemary Neill , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 1-2 April 2023; (p. 9)
— Review of Praiseworthy Alexis Wright , 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 Geordie Williamson , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 22-23 April 2023; (p. 16)
— Review of Praiseworthy Alexis Wright , 2023 single work novel
y separately published work icon Alexis Wright’s Expansive New Work Tony Hughes-d'Aeth , 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.'
y separately published work icon 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)
Unruliness, Activism and Emotional Intensity: Your Guide to the 2024 Stella Prize Shortlist Julieanne Lamond , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 2 May 2024;

'For more than a decade now, the Stella Prize, an award celebrating Australian women’s writing, has been changing Australia’s literary landscape. It has taken a monkey wrench to the way literary esteem is bestowed in this country. Its annual whack has shifted the calibration of what kinds of books are valued.' (Introduction)
Alexis Wright Becomes the First to Win the Stella Prize Twice, with Her ‘Hyper Real’ Novel of Aboriginal Sovereignty and Survival Julieanne Lamond , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 2 May 2024;

'Acclaimed Waanyi writer Alexis Wright has made Australian literary history by being the first author to win the Stella Prize twice. This time, it’s for Praiseworthy, her fourth novel – her first in more than a decade.'
Indigenous Author Alexis Wright Wins 2024 Stella Prize for Her Novel Praiseworthy Nicola Heath , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , May 2024;
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (19)

Awards

VIEW ALL AWARDS (8)
Last amended 28 Sep 2023 16:47:42
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