Praiseworthy (2023) is a novel by Australian writer Alexis Wright. It was originally published by Giramondo Publishing in Australia in 2023.[1]
| Author | Alexis Wright |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Giramondo Publishing |
Publication date | 2023 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 736 pp. |
| Awards | Queensland Literary Awards — Fiction Book Award 2023 |
| ISBN | 9781922725745 |
| Preceded by | The Swan Book |
It was the winner of the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards — Fiction Book Award.[2]
Synopsis edit
The town of Praiseworthy, in Australia's north, is home to Cause Man Steel, who sees an end-of-the-world crisis looming. His solution is to round up all the donkeys in the nearby area, arguing that they will be important when civilization collapses. He and his wife, Dance, who has become fascinated by moths and butterflies, and his sons, Aboriginal Sovereignty, who wants to commit suicide, and Tommyhawk, who wants to become white, have to live under the 2008 Australian Federal Government intervention program, which attempts to regulate how Indigenous Australians act and behave.
Epigraph edit
- "I am not even dust. I am a dream..." -Jorge Luis Borges
Publishing history edit
After its initial publication in Australia by Giramondo Publishing in 2023,[3] the novel is due to be reprinted in February 2024 in USA by New Directions.[1]
Critical reception edit
Mykaela Saunders, writing in Sydney Review of Books, noted that the novel "is classic Wright: a book made of beautiful, mutable and playful language, designed to be enjoyed."[4]
In Australian Book Review Tony Hughes-d'Aeth called the novel a "worthy" successor to the author's previous two books, and went on: "One of the joys of reading Wright is the wry exasperation that permeates the narrator's voice. Praiseworthy 's narration is a sustained rant that calls to mind the work of Thomas Bernhard or the quiet rage of Dostoyevsky. But as with the work of these great writers, there is always a gleam in the novel’s eye that causes the story to hover between tragedy and farce. This undecidability is the symptom of the scale of the novel's address. Wright is that rare thing in Australian writing: a writer of political reality." They concluded: "Praiseworthy blew me away. If one wants to feel the grit of Indigenous sovereignty, or to see it working in its most unassimilable and joyously maddening forms, then Wright's new novel offers that possibility. It is a novel that runs rings around the mincing discourses of reconciliation. It seems to casually hold the whole universe in the teasing circularity of its incantations."[5]
Awards edit
- Queensland Literary Awards — Fiction Book Award 2023, winner[2]
See also edit
Notes edit
- You can read an excerpt from the novel on The Wheeler Centre website.[6]
References edit
- ^ a b "Austlit — Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (Giramondo Publishing) 2023". Austlit. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
- ^ a b "Winners of the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards announced". Media statements. Queensland Government. 5 September 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
- ^ "Praiseworthy (Giramondo Publishing)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
- ^ ""Think of the Children!"". Sydney Review of Books, June 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
- ^ ""The question of the future"". ABR, April 2023. 27 March 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
- ^ ""Read an extract from Alexis Wright's Praiseworthy"". The Wheeler Centre. Retrieved 13 January 2024.