Carpentaria - Hardcover

Wright, Alexis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416593101 ISBN 13: 9781416593102

Publisher: Atria Books, 2009

Synopsis

Hailed as a "literary sensation" by The New York Times Book Review, Carpentaria is the luminous award-winning novel by Australian Aboriginal writer and activist Alexis Wright.

Alexis Wright employs mysticism, stark reality, and pointed imagination to re-create the land and the Aboriginal people of Carpentaria.

In the sparsely populated northern Queensland town of Desperance, loyalties run deep and battle lines have been drawn between the powerful Phantom family, leaders of the Westend Pricklebush people, and Joseph Midnight's renegade Eastend mob, and their disputes with the white officials of neighboring towns. Steeped in myth and magical realism, Wright's hypnotic storytelling exposes the heartbreaking realities of Aboriginal life.

By turns operatic and everyday, surreal and sensational, the novel teems with extraordinary, larger-than-life characters. From the outcast savior Elias Smith, religious zealot Mossie Fishman, and murderous mayor Bruiser to activist Will Phantom and Normal Phantom, ruler of the family, these unforgettable characters transcend their circumstances and challenge assumptions about the downtrodden "other." Trapped between politics and principle, past and present, the indigenous tribes fight to protect their natural resources, sacred sites, and above all, their people.

Already an international bestseller, Carpentaria has garnered praise from around the world.

About this title

Review

An astonishing tour de force ... undeniably important (Guardian)

[A] thundering, swelling epic ... Wright has a way of entering the hearts, minds and bloodstreams of her characters. (The Times)

A huge, audacious, monstrous work of genius...moving, uplifting and funny...you'll emerge from this astonishing novel with a bit of your brain left in the Dreamtime. (The Independent.)

Alexis Wright's Carpentaria is already considered an Australian masterwork, one of those books which re-make a world, in this case the world of tropic Australia, Aboriginal and European, anew. It will attract and excite readers the world over. (Thomas Keneally)

Wright's gift to Australian literature is Desperance ... it's her uncanny ear for the particularities of local language and eye for striking symbolism that could carry Carpentaria into the classics sections of bookshelves in years to come. (Michael Fitzgerald, Time Magazine)

Wright's is the authentic aboriginal voice. With humour and occasional farce, but always with an underlying truthfulness, she delivers a brutal portrait of the physical and psychological violence between the white newcomers and the original inhabitants. (The Economist)

So comprehensive is Wright's vision that reading it is like looking at her world from the inside. It's an unashamedly big book - big in scope, ambition and physical size - and well-suited to the Gulf country it sings. It is also an important book. (Liam Davison, Sydney Morning Herald)

This is the kind of writing in which a reader can put their entire trust in the narrator, put the weight of their doubt in the narrator's hands. It is like being spoken to by someone with a voice you can trust, someone standing close by. It is as if you could hear their intake of breath, the compassion in their voice, their amusement at the foolishness of mortals. (Alison Ravescroft, The Age)

Carpentaria is a swelling, heaving, tsunami of a novel: stinging, sinuous, salted with outrageous humour, sweetened by spiralling lyricism and swaggering with the confident promise of a tale dominated by risk, roguery and revelation. (Michele Grossman, The Australian)

One of the most enchanting books of this year (The Financial Times)

Book Description

A rich and epic novel from an authentic aboriginal voice. Winner of the 2007 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1416593101
• ISBN 13: 9781416593102
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 517