Praiseworthy (novel)

Last updated

Praiseworthy
Praiseworthy (novel).jpg
Author Alexis Wright
LanguageEnglish
GenreFiction
Publisher Giramondo Publishing
Publication date
1 April 2023
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint, ebook
Pages736 pp.
Awards James Tait Prize (2023)
QLS — Fiction (2023)
ALS Gold Medal (2024)
Miles Franklin Award (2024)
Stella Prize (2024)
ISBN 9781922725745
OCLC 1362528097
823.914
LC Class PR9619.3.W67 P73 2024
Preceded by The Swan Book  

Praiseworthy (2023) is a novel by Australian writer Alexis Wright. It was initially published by Giramondo Publishing in Australia in 2023. [1]

Contents

Praiseworthy won a litany of Australian literary awards, including the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards' Fiction Book Award, 2024 ALS Gold Medal, the 2024 Miles Franklin Award, and the 2024 Stella Prize. It also drew increased international notoriety when it won the 2023 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the 2024 IMPAC. It has also been longlisted for the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize. [2]

Synopsis

The town of Praiseworthy, in Australia's north, is home to Cause Man Steel (also known as Widespread Planet), 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 be adopted by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, have to live under a program similar to the 2008 Australian Federal Government intervention program, which attempts to regulate Aboriginal behavior. Cause and Dance are resented by the assimilationist citizens of Praiseworthy, especially the albino mayor Ice Pick, and the town is consumed by religious fervor and Native Title land disputes.

Cause goes on a journey to seek the purest gray donkey as part of his plan, while Tommyhawk reports Aboriginal Sovereignty to the police for having an underaged girlfriend, after which Aboriginal Sovereignty drowns himself in the ocean. The citizens of Praiseworthy search for Aboriginal Sovereignty’s body amidst the intervention program. During a contentious meeting with a government representative, the ancestral spirits of the Aboriginal people destroy signs installed as part of the intervention with lightning, while the unruliness of Cause’s donkeys causes the town to turn even further against him. Dance, who has Chinese ancestry, seeks to escape to China with the help of people smugglers as the citizens of Praiseworthy reject her.

When Cause returns, Ice Pick and the other assimilationists accuse him of killing Aboriginal Sovereignty, and Ice Pick plays on government fear of Chinese influence by reporting his donkey scheme to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

Epigraph

Publishing history

After its initial publication in Australia by Giramondo Publishing in 2023, [3] the novel was reprinted as follows:

Critical reception

According to the online aggregator Book Marks, Praiseworthy received a "rave" consensus from mainstream critics, based on nine reviews — with seven being "rave" and two being "positive". [4]

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." [5]

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." [6]

Awards

YearAwardCategoryResultRef
2023 James Tait Black Memorial Prize Won [7]
Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book AwardWon [8]
2024 ALS Gold Medal Won [9]
International Dublin Literary Award Shortlisted [10]
Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary AwardShortlisted [11]
Miles Franklin Award Won [12]
New South Wales Premier's Literary Award Christina Stead Prize Shortlisted [13]
Stella Prize Won [14]
Voss Literary Prize Won [15]

See also

Notes

Related Research Articles

The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.

Alan Wearne is an Australian poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Scott</span> Indigenous Australian novelist (born 1957)

Kim Scott is an Australian novelist of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. He is a descendant of the Noongar people of Western Australia.

The Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry is awarded annually as part of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards for a book of collected poems or for a single poem of substantial length published in book form. It is named after Kenneth Slessor (1901–1971).

Lionel Fogarty, also published as Lionel Lacey, is an Indigenous Australian poet and political activist.

The Mary Gilmore Award is currently an annual Australian literary award for poetry, awarded by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Since being established in 1956 as the ACTU Dame Mary Gilmore Award, it has been awarded in several other categories, but has been confined to poetry since 1985. It was named in honour of writer and journalist Mary Gilmore (1865–1962).

The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the Australian Literature Society, then from 1983 by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, when the two organisations were merged.

Alexis Wright is a Waanyi writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria and for being the first writer to win the Stella Prize twice, in 2018 for her "collective memoir" of Leigh Bruce "Tracker" Tilmouth and in 2024 for Praiseworthy.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.

<i>Carpentaria</i> (novel) 2006 novel by Alexis Wright

Carpentaria is the second novel by the Indigenous Australian author Alexis Wright. It met with widespread critical acclaim when it was published in mid-2006, and went on to win Australia's premier literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award, in mid-2007.

Michael Farrell is a contemporary Australian poet.

Anthony Lawrence is a contemporary Australian poet and novelist. Lawrence has received a number of Australia Council for the Arts Literature Board Grants, including a Fellowship, and has won many awards for his poetry, including the inaugural Judith Wright Calanthe Award, the Gwen Harwood Memorial Prize, and the Newcastle Poetry Prize. His most recent collection is Headwaters which was awarded the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry in 2017.

Leigh Bruce ‘Tracker’ Tilmouth was a Northern Territory Aboriginal activist.

<i>The Swan Book</i> Novel by Alexis Wright

The Swan Book is the third novel by the Indigenous Australian author Alexis Wright. It met with critical acclaim when it was published in 2013, and was shortlisted for Australia's premier literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiona Wright</span> Australian poet and critic (born 1983)

Fiona Wright is an Australian poet and critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous Australian literature</span> Literature produced by Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australian literature is the fiction, plays, poems, essays and other works authored by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

Lisa Gorton is an Australian poet, novelist, literary editor and essayist. She is the author of four award-winning poetry collections: Press Release, Hotel Hyperion, Empirical, and Mirabilia. Her second novel, The Life of Houses, received the NSW Premier's People's Choice Award for Fiction and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction (shared). Gorton is also the editor of Black Inc's anthology Best Australian Poems 2013.

Evelyn Araluen is an Australian poet and literary editor. She won the 2022 Stella Prize with her first book, Dropbear.

This is a list of historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2024.

Yumna Kassab is an Australian novelist. She was appointed the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature for 2024.

Edenglassie is a 2023 novel by the Australian author Melissa Lucashenko.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Austlit — Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (Giramondo Publishing) 2023". Austlit. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  2. "Explore the longlist". The Climate Fiction Prize. November 2024. Retrieved 26 November 2024.
  3. "Praiseworthy (Giramondo Publishing)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  4. "Praiseworthy". Book Marks. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  5. ""Think of the Children!"". Sydney Review of Books, June 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  6. ""The question of the future"". ABR, April 2023. 27 March 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  7. "Wright wins 2024 James Tait Black fiction prize". Books + Publishing. 16 May 2024. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  8. "Winners of the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards announced". Media statements. Queensland Government. 5 September 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  9. "Wright wins 2024 ALS Gold Medal". Books + Publishing. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
  10. "Discover the 2024 Dublin Literary Award Shortlist". Dublin Literary Award. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  11. "2024 Long and Short Lists". www.jcu.edu.au. 9 August 2024. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  12. Burke, Kelly (1 August 2024). "Alexis Wright wins second Miles Franklin prize for Praiseworthy". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 1 August 2024.
  13. "Praiseworthy". www.sl.nsw.gov.au. 14 March 2024. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  14. "2024 Stella Prize". Stella. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  15. "Wright wins 2024 Voss Literary Prize". Books+Publishing. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
  16. ""Read an extract from Alexis Wright's Praiseworthy"". The Wheeler Centre. Retrieved 13 January 2024.