'There are certain books that have the knack of getting under your skin. This is why George Bernard Shaw declared Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit to be a far more “seditious” text than Karl Marx’s Das Capital.

'What he was getting at is the power of books to work on your emotions. The intellect can be too cold an instrument to engender empathy, to bring people who are distant from you into your “circle of concern”. And it is precisely this, as philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues, that matters for the pursuit of social justice.

'In 2017, the Stella Prize judges have again come up with a shortlist of books that will engage your brain, but also your heart. They illuminate all the aspects of life that make us frail and vulnerable – sickness, dying, inequality – realities that many of us would prefer to ignore.' (Introduction)

'Maxine Beneba Clarke is shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize for her memoir The Hate Race. Maxine is the first author to be shortlisted for the Stella Prize twice, after her short story collection, Foreign Soil, was recognised in 2015. In this special Stella interview, Maxine shares some thoughts about the process of memoir writing, the pull of the poetic form, and what it’s really like to write while female.' (Introduction)

'The Hate Race begins with a short summation of Clarke's parents' meeting and arrival in Australia as a young, black British couple, then quickly settles into Maxine's own experience. Maxine grew up in a middle-class family full of Play-Doh and tadpoles and Cabbage Patch dolls. The Hate Race draws our attention to how far we are from living in a postracial world, yet Clarke's critique feels compassionate-angry but not without hope, brutally honest but not without acknowledging the love of family and refuge of loyal friends.'  (Publication abstract)