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Praiseworthy is an epic set in the north of Australia, told with
the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis
Wright has become renowned. In a small Aboriginal town dominated by
a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a
gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out a 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 and
Chinese family to China. One of their sons, called Aboriginal
Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide. The other, Tommyhawk,
wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming
white and powerful. This is a novel which pushes allegory and
language to its limits, a cry of outrage against oppression and
disadvantage, and both a sharp satire and a thoughtful fable for
the end of days.
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Carpentaria
Alexis Wright
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R517
R490
Discovery Miles 4 900
Save R27 (5%)
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Ships in 18 - 22 working days
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Set in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance,
Carpentaria is the unforgettable portrait of the powerful Phantom
family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles
with old Joseph Midnight's renegade Eastend mob on the one hand,
and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit
mine on the other. By turns operatic and surreal, Wright's stunning
and richly imagined storytelling is a blend of myth and scripture,
farce and politics. Her extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the
outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous
mayor Stan Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the
activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, the rulers
of the family, the queen of the rubbish-dump and the fish-embalming
king of time, Angel Day and Normal Phantom - stride like giants in
this storm-swept world.
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Praiseworthy
Alexis Wright
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R629
R580
Discovery Miles 5 800
Save R49 (8%)
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Ships in 18 - 22 working days
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The Swan Book is set in the future, with Aboriginals still living
under the Intervention in the north, in an environment
fundamentally altered by climate change. It follows the life of a
mute teenager called Oblivia, the victim of gang-rape by
petrol-sniffing youths, from the displaced community where she
lives in a hulk, in a swamp filled with rusting boats, and
thousands of black swans driven from other parts of the country, to
her marriage to Warren Finch, the first Aboriginal president of
Australia, and her elevation to the position of First Lady,
confined to a tower in a flooded and lawless southern city. The
Swan Book has all the qualities which made Wright's previous novel,
Carpentaria, a prize-winning bestseller. It offers an intimate
awareness of the realities facing Aboriginal people; the wild
energy and humour in her writing finds hope in the bleakest
situations; and the remarkable combination of storytelling
elements, drawn from myth and legend and fairy tale, has Oblivia
Ethylene in the company of amazing characters like Aunty Bella
Donna of the Champions, the Harbour Master, Big Red and the
Mechanic, a talking monkey called Rigoletto, three genies with
doctorates, and throughout, the guiding presence of swans.
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