Publisher's synopsis
Carpentaria is an epic of the Gulf country of north-western Queensland. Its portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight’s renegade Eastend mob 2007 on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright’s storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel teems with extraordinary characters – the outcast saviour Elias Smith, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist Will Phantom, and above all, the rulers of the family, the queen of the rubbish-dump and the fish-embalming king of time, Angel Day and Normal Phantom – figures of such an intense imagining, they stand like giants in this storm-swept world.
Awards
- Winner: Miles Franklin Literary Award 2007
- Winner: ALS Gold Medal 2007
- Winner: Fiction Book Prize, Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards 2007
- Winner: Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2007
Complementary content
Books That Made Us AustLit information trail
Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. She is the author of the prize-winning novels Carpentaria, The Swan Book, and, most recently, Praiseworthy. Her works of non-fiction include Take Power, an oral history of the Central Land Council; Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory; and Tracker, the award-winning collective memoir of Aboriginal leader, Tracker Tilmouth.
Wright’s books have been published widely overseas, including in China, the US, the UK, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Poland. She has won numerous literary awards, including the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Carpentaria and Praiseworthy, as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Queensland Literary Award for Praiseworthy, which was also shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Wright is the first author to win the Stella Prize twice (for Tracker and Praiseworthy), and Praiseworthy is the only book to have received both the Stella and the Miles Franklin awards.Alex held the position of Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne, and has received honorary titles at universities including the University of Melbourne, Western Sydney University and the University of Queensland. She is the inaugural winner of the Creative Australia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, the winner of the 2024 Melbourne Prize for Literature, and is shortlisted in the Legacy category for the 2025 Asia Pacific Arts Awards.
Bio: Giramondo Publishing
Photo: Vincent Long, courtesy of Giramondo Publishing
Complementary content
Books That Made Us
