Who is Alexis Wright?
Alexis Wright is an Aboriginal Australian novelist from the Waanyi nation of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, best known for Carpentaria, which won the Miles Franklin Award in 2007.
Born in Cloncurry, Queensland, in 1950, Wright has worked as an activist for Aboriginal land rights and self-determination for many years.
Carpentaria tells the story of the Phantom family in the fictional Gulf town of Desperance, mixing myth, humour and politics in a sweeping narrative about land, mining and Aboriginal life.
Awards
Wright won the Miles Franklin Award again in 2024 for Praiseworthy, a long, ambitious novel set in a small northern town, making her one of the few writers to win the prize more than once.
Her novel The Swan Book imagines a future Australia affected by climate change and military control of Aboriginal communities, and it was widely praised.
She has also written non-fiction, including Tracker, a collective memoir of Aboriginal leader Tracker Tilmouth, which won the Stella Prize in 2018, and Grog War, about alcohol in Tennant Creek.
Did You Know?
Carpentaria was the first novel by an Aboriginal author to win the Miles Franklin Award as a sole winner.