Praiseworthy, by Alexis Wright!
This is the second time Wright has won the Miles Franklin Award. Her novel Carpentaria won in 2007.
Wright’s novel Praiseworthy also won the Stella prize this year for the second time. She is the 8th woman in a row to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award.
Summary: In a small town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in following the dance of butterflies and scouring the internet to find out how she can seek repatriation for her Aboriginal/Chinese family to China. One of their sons, called Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide after being labelled a paedophile. The other, Tommyhawk, wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming white and powerful. When the town is overrun by donkeys, the residents and their strange religious sects react with anger, led by the Mayor, the albino Aboriginal named Ice Pick, and his outlandishly dressed Ice Queens.
Alexis describes the novel as a “once-in-a-lifetime book” that took her 10 years to write. Just click on the cover below to reserve a copy.
