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Alexis Wright

Alexis Wright FAHA (born 25 November 1950)[2] is a Waanyi (Aboriginal Australian) writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria[3] and for being the first writer to win the Stella Prize twice, in 2018 for her "collective memoir" of Leigh Bruce "Tracker" Tilmouth[4] and in 2024 for Praiseworthy.[5] Praiseworthy also won her the Miles Franklin Award in 2024, making her the first person to win the Stella Prize and Miles Franklin Award in the same year.[6]

Alexis Wright

FAHA
Born (1950-11-25) 25 November 1950 (age 74)
Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia[1]
OccupationAuthor, novelist
Period1997–present
GenreFiction, non-fiction
Notable worksCarpentaria, Tracker, Praiseworthy
Notable awards

Wright has published four novels, one biography, and several works of nonfiction. Her work also appears in anthologies and journals.

Origin and activism

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Wright is a land rights activist from the Waanyi nation in the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Her father, a white cattleman, died when she was five years old and she grew up in Cloncurry, Queensland, with her mother and grandmother.[7]

When the Northern Territory Intervention proposed by the Howard Government in mid-2007 was introduced, Wright delivered a high-profile 10,000-word speech, sponsored by International PEN.[8]

Literary career

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Wright's first book, the novel Plains of Promise, published in 1997, was nominated for several literary awards.[9]

Wright is also the author of non-fiction works. Take Power, on the history of the land rights movement, was published in 1998, and Grog War (Magabala Books) on the introduction of alcohol restrictions in Tennant Creek, published in 1997.[10]

Her second novel, Carpentaria, took two years to conceive and more than six years to write. It was rejected by every major publisher in Australia before independent publisher Giramondo published it in 2006. It won the Miles Franklin Award in June 2007, the 2007 Fiction Book award in the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, the 2007 ALS Gold Medal and the 2007 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction.[3][11][12]

In 2009, Wright wrote the words for Dirtsong, a musical theatre production created and performed by the Black Arm Band theatre company. The performance included both contemporary and traditional songs, and had its world premiere at the 2009 Melbourne International Arts Festival.[13] The show was reprised for the 2014 Adelaide Festival,[14][15] with performers including Trevor Jamieson, Archie Roach, Lou Bennett, Emma Donovan, Paul Dempsey, and many other singers and musicians. Some of the songs were sung in Aboriginal languages.[16]

Wright was a 2012 attendee of the Byron Bay Writers Festival[17] and Singapore Writers Festival.[18]

Also in 2013, Wright's third novel, The Swan Book, was published. The book delves into the cultural and racial political challenges facing Australia's Indigenous peoples.[19] It was shortlisted for the 2014 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing.[20]

In 2014 Wright was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.[21]

Wright's book, Tracker, her tribute to the central Australian economist Tracker Tilmouth, was published by Giramondo in 2017. A biographical work variously characterized as unconventional[22] and complicated,[23] Tracker won the 2018 Stella Prize.[24] In the words of Ben Etherington: "It is a work, epic in scope and size, that will ensure that a legend of Central Australian politics is preserved in myth."[25] She was awarded the 2018 Magarey Medal for Biography for Tracker.[26] Tracker also won the 2018 University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award at the Queensland Literary Awards.[27] and was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction 2019.[28] Wright was on the program for four events at the 2017 Brisbane Writers Festival in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.[29]

In 2018, Wright conducted another storytelling collaboration, this time with the Gangalidda leader and activist Clarence Walden in Doomadgee, Northern Queensland. Her work with Walden led to two feature documentaries, Nothing but the Truth, a radio feature that broadcast on the Awaye! program on ABC Radio National in June 2019,[30] and Straight from the Heart, a screen documentary that premiered at World Literature and the Global South in August 2019.[31]

Wright won the Fiction Book Award and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance at the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards for Praiseworthy.[32] Praiseworthy won the 2023 James Tait Black Prize[33] and the 2024 Stella Prize.[5][34] It was shortlisted for the 2024 International Dublin Literary Award[35] and won the 2024 ALS Gold Medal. This was Wright's third ALS Gold Medal. She is the third author to have achieved this, after Patrick White and David Malouf.[36]

She received the Creative Australia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature in 2023[37] and was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Literature in 2024.[38]

Academic career

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Wright is a Distinguished Research Fellow at Western Sydney University.[39]

She is a member of the Australian Research Council research project "Other Worlds: Forms of World Literature".[40] Building on her success with Tracker, her theme for the project focuses on forms of Aboriginal oral storytelling.[41]

In 2017, Wright was named the Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne.[42]

Works

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Novels

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  • —— (1997). Plains of Promise. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702229176.
  • —— (2006). Carpentaria. Sydney: Giramondo. ISBN 9781920882174.
  • —— (2013). The Swan Book. Sydney: Giramondo. ISBN 9781922146410.
  • —— (2023). Praiseworthy. Sydney: Giramondo. ISBN 9781922725325. [43][44]

Short stories

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  • "Le pacte du serpent arc-en-ciel". [The Serpent’s Covenant] (Acte Sud, 2002). ISBN 978-2742740956

Non-fiction

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Edited works

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  • Take Power, Like This Old Man Here: An anthology of writings celebrating twenty years of land rights in Central Australia, 1977–1997 (IAD, 1998). ISBN 1-86465-005-2

References

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  1. ^ "Premier Applauds Queensland Miles Franklin Winner". Queensland Government. 22 June 2007. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  2. ^ Who's Who in Australia. Crown Content. p. 2207.
  3. ^ a b "Wright wins Miles Franklin". news.com.au. 21 June 2007.
  4. ^ "THE 2018 STELLA PRIZE". Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  5. ^ a b Steger, Jason (2 May 2024). "Alexis Wright wins Stella Prize with 'great Australian novel'". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
  6. ^ "Alexis Wright becomes the first person to win the Miles Franklin and the Stella Prize in the same year". ABC News. 1 August 2024. Retrieved 2 August 2024.
  7. ^ Wyndham, Susan (22 June 2007). "Gulf country's voice shines in Australian epic". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  8. ^ "Sydney PEN Voices: The 3 Writers Project". International PEN Article Archive. 4 July 2007. Archived from the original on 4 July 2007. Retrieved 7 December 2010.
  9. ^ "Australia Council: Arts in Australia: Alexis Wright". ozco.gov.au. Archived from the original on 31 August 2007.
  10. ^ "Grog War". Magabala Books. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  11. ^ "ALS Gold Medal". Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Archived from the original on 29 August 2007. Retrieved 14 September 2007.
  12. ^ "The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction: Winner 2007". State Library of Victoria. 10 August 2007. Archived from the original on 11 September 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2007.
  13. ^ "Dirtsong". AustLit. 24 October 2009. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
  14. ^ "Dirtsong" (audio). The Wire. 28 April 2016. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
  15. ^ McDonald, Patrick (17 March 2014). "Adelaide Festival review 2014: Dirtsong – Black Arm Band". The Advertiser. Adelaide.
  16. ^ Johnson, Dash Taylor (16 March 2014). "Black Arm Band: dirtsong". InDaily. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
  17. ^ Corrie Perkin (27 June 2012). "A great month for writers' festivals". Archived from the original on 25 April 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
  18. ^ "Continuing with this week's SWF Sneaks", Singapore Writers Festival, 9 July 2012.
  19. ^ Wright, Alexis (16 January 2018). The Swan Book. Washington Square Press. ISBN 978-1-5011-2479-2.
  20. ^ "Lucashenko wins 2014 Vic Prem's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing". Books+Publishing. 4 September 2014. Archived from the original on 4 September 2021. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  21. ^ "Fellows: Alexis Wright". Australian Academy of the Humanities. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  22. ^ Morris, Linda (12 April 2018). "Alexis Wright's unconventional biography wins the Stella Prize". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  23. ^ Romei, Stephen (12 April 2018). "Stella to indigenous writer Alexis Wright for Tracker's tale". The Australian.
  24. ^ Convery, Stephanie (12 April 2018). "Alexis Wright wins Stella prize for 'majestic' biography of Tracker Tilmouth". The Guardian.
  25. ^ Etherington, Ben (12 April 2018). "Alexis Wright wins 2018 Stella Prize for Tracker, an epic feat of Aboriginal storytelling". The Conversation.
  26. ^ "Wright awarded 2018 Magarey Medal". Books+Publishing. 4 July 2018. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
  27. ^ "Queensland Literary Awards 2018 winners announced | Books+Publishing". Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  28. ^ Perkins, Cathy (Summer 2019). "Excellence in Literature and History". SL Magazine. 12 (4): 52–55.
  29. ^ "Brisbane Writers Festival". Uplit. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  30. ^ "Nothing but the truth". Radio National. 7 June 2019. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  31. ^ "World Literatures and the Global South". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  32. ^ "Winners of the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards announced". Media statements. Queensland Government. 5 September 2023. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
  33. ^ "Wright wins 2024 James Tait Black fiction prize". Books+Publishing. 16 May 2024. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  34. ^ Burke, Kelly (2 May 2024). "'Perhaps the great Australian novel': Alexis Wright wins Stella prize for second time with Praiseworthy". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 15 October 2024.
  35. ^ "Wright shortlisted for 2024 Dublin Literary Award". Books+Publishing. 27 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  36. ^ Mem: 7702448. "Wright wins 2024 ALS Gold Medal | Books+Publishing". Retrieved 8 July 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  37. ^ "Wright honoured for Lifetime Achievement in Literature". Books+Publishing. 18 September 2023. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  38. ^ "Wright, Tiffany 2024 Melbourne Prize winners". Books+Publishing. 14 November 2024. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  39. ^ "Alexis Wright – The Drum Opinion". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 31 December 2012. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  40. ^ "Forms of World Literature", Other Worlds.
  41. ^ "Oral Storytelling". Other Worlds. 18 October 2018.
  42. ^ Steger, Jason (27 November 2017). "Alexis Wright named professor of Australian literature at Melbourne University". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  43. ^ Jefferson, Dee (2 August 2024). "Praiseworthy: why Alexis Wright's 'staggering' epic is sweeping prizes – and challenging readers". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 15 October 2024.
  44. ^ Frost, Natasha (4 February 2024). "At 73, Australia's Most Important Aboriginal Writer Is Making Her Mark". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2024.
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