Praiseworthy

Alexis Wright

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cover image of the book Praiseworthy

Praiseworthy blew me away... If you think you know what assimilation is, you should read Praiseworthy and think again.

— Australian Book Review

An astonishing and monumental masterpiece from the towering Australian writer Alexis Wright, whose “words explode from the page” (The Monthly).

Available Feb, 06 2024

Praiseworthy

Fictionby Alexis Wright

In a small town in the north of Australia, a mysterious cloud heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of their ancestors. A crazed visionary looks to donkeys to solve the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife, seeking solace from his madness, follows the dance of butterflies and scours the internet to find out how her Aboriginal/Chinese family could be repatriated to China. One of their sons, named 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.


Praiseworthy is an epic which pushes allegory and language to their limit; a unique masterpiece that bends time and reality, opening new literary vistas; a cry of outrage against oppression and disadvantage; and a fable for the end of days.

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Paperback(published Feb, 06 2024)

ISBN
9780811238014
Price US
25.95
Trim Size
5x8
Page Count
672pp

Ebook

ISBN
9780811238021
Portrait of Alexis Wright

Alexis Wright

A prize-winning novelist and nonfiction writer, and a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Praiseworthy blew me away... If you think you know what assimilation is, you should read Praiseworthy and think again.

— Australian Book Review

An abundant odyssey that contains a formidable vision of Australia’s future. This is a long journey through the imagination, a novel both urgent and deeply contemplated... The rich interrelations of ancestral spirits, larger-than-life characters, and Country all derive from the Aboriginal traditions of storytelling. But there are also signs of literary influence from every compass point on the map, including, most notably, the surrealism and magic realism of writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez.

— The Age

A trippy, mind-blowing, allegorical, and powerfully political book, Praiseworthy takes you to another world (the small titular town of Praiseworthy, suffering under a haze cloud and under racism), and makes that world real and makes you care deeply.

— TANK