Alexis Wright

Alexis Wright (born 25 November 1950) [Crown Content "Who's Who in Australia" page 2207] is an Indigenous Australian writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel "Carpentaria". [http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,23663,21948728-10388,00.html AAP via News Limited "Wright wins Miles Franklin" 22 June 2007] ]

Wright is a land rights activist originally from the Waanyi people in the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Wright's father, a white cattleman, died when she was five years old and she grew up in Cloncurry, Queensland with her mother and grandmother. [ [http://www.smh.com.au/news/books/gulf-countrys-voice-shines-in-australian-epic/2007/06/21/1182019285824.html Susan Wyndham, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 June 2007] ] Her first book "Plains of Promise" published in 1997 was nominated for several literary awards and has been reprinted several times by University of Queensland Press. [ [http://www.ozco.gov.au/arts_in_australia/artists/artists_atsia/alexis_wright/ Australia Council Arts in Australia Alexis Wright] ]

Wright has also published two non-fiction works - "Take Power" an anthology on the history of the land rights movement in 1998 and "Grog War" on the introduction of alcohol restrictions in Tennant Creek published in 1997.

"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. Since then it has won the Miles Franklin Award in June 2007 (ahead of a shortlist including Peter Carey's ""), 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. [cite web
title = ALS Gold Medal
publisher = Association for the Study of Australian Literature
date =
url = http://www.asc.uq.edu.au/asal/index.php?apply=1&menu=awards&order=1&extra=default
accessdate = 2007-09-14 ] [cite web
title = The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction: Winner 2007
publisher = State Library of Victoria
year = 2007-08-10
url = http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/programs/literary/pla/vpprize/winner2007.html
accessdate = 2007-11-04 ]

Bibliography

Novels
* "Plains of Promise". (UQP, 1997)
* "Carpentaria". (Giramondo, 2006)

Short stories
* "Le pacte de serpent". [The Serpent’s Covenant] (2002)

Non-fiction
* "Grog war". (Magabala, 1997) ISBN 1875641319 [http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/0426.html Review]
* "Croire en L'incroyable". [Believing the Unbelievable] (2000)

Editor
* "Take Power, Like This Old Man Here: An anthology of writings celebrating twenty years of land rights in Central Australia, 1977-1997" (IAD, l998) ISBN 1864650052

References

External links

* [http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-September-1998/wright.html Breaking Taboos] Essay

Persondata
NAME=Wright, Alexis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Indigenous Australian writer
DATE OF BIRTH=1950
PLACE OF BIRTH=Queensland, Australia
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=