'Australian Aboriginal stories have thrived for thousands of years through oral tradition and Aboriginal author Alexis Wright invokes this tradition in the construction of her novel Carpentaria. This article investigates the orality of Carpentaria, which stages “oral” narrators who speak differently to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal readerships. First, using Bakhtin’s notion of “speech genre”, the article explores why Wright creates these two narrative layers. Second, it investigates the language use and tone of voice in the framing narrative that addresses non-Indigenous readers. Third, it looks closely at Wright’s linguistic experimentation in the embedded narrative, creating multiple oral effects through language and mobilising the storytelling dynamics of performance, spontaneity, rhythms and mnemonics. Finally, it discusses how her creative use of orality plays off and with its Western literary conceptions and enacts cross-cultural communication between the two readerships.' (Publication abstract)
'The Marina du Château room was the perfect location for the 2021 international conference "Indigenous Environmental Practices as Responses to Pollution," directly following the 2021 conference on Alexis Wright's Carpentaria in Brest. On October 21 and 22, 2021, the sunlit room lined with high windows opening on a large, oval balcony directly looked out on the Brest Harbour, such that the sky and ocean became integral parts of the conference venue. The ocean's mesmerizing power added an ethereal touch to the intriguing conversations of all participants, including Alexis Wright and Tara June Winch. Brest was the perfect point of convergence between the Americas and Oceania, with participants from all over the world, virtually and on-site, reflecting on contemporary environmental challenges and the different ways Indigenous artistic practices tackle them.' (Introduction)
'Drawing on Alexis Wright’s interviews and essays on the creative writing process, this article gives insight into how the Waanyi novelist conceived Carpentaria (2006) and the philosophy she holds for literature and storytelling. In the first two sections, notions of truth, modal thought, reference, simulation, imagination and reality will be discussed in relation to Lubomír Doležel’s propounded theory of possible worlds. Literary theory, the philosophy of fiction and cognitive literary studies are the three main areas that will be investigated to probe the storytelling dynamics of imagination and reality. In the last section, we will bring to the fore the ways in which novel-writing is for Alexis Wright an exercise in gap-filling, one that brings the silenced details out of the shadows.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'This article examines how Aboriginal conceptions of time and space in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria and Janette Turner Hospital’s Oyster affect representations of personal, cultural and ecological trauma through privileging sites of wounding that embody Country. The four elements of air, water, earth and fire are central to understanding how each text navigates the complex relational matrices of Aboriginal traumas and respond to ongoing issues of genocide and dispossession that are part of Australia’s tragic history. Elemental energies in these novels are connected to powerful spaces that pain inhabits and moves through, providing insights into the significance of their engagement with Aboriginality and trauma, particularly when situated within the context of legislature including the Native Title Act of 1993 and the Wik decision of 1996. Elemental motifs perform a cyclical function that begins with deep connectedness to oceanic imagery in Carpentaria, then transitions to trauma inflicted on Country and culminates in a cathartic watery Armageddon. While Oyster’s consideration of elemental traumatic space is primarily attributed to land, cartography and wounded bodies, the novel’s narrative threads reach a similar apocalyptic denouement. Oyster’s cataclysmic fires of destruction are eclipsed by the regenerative potencies of water that rejuvenate Country and supplant horror with beauty.' (Publication abstract)
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.'