Alexis Wright’s epic novel Praiseworthy continues to sweep the literary prize pool, winning the prestigious $60,000 Miles Franklin literary award on Thursday.
It is the second time the 73-year-old Waanyi writer has collected Australia’s most esteemed literary prize, having won in 2007 for her second novel Carpentaria.
This year’s Miles Franklin judges described Praiseworthy as “an astonishing feat of storytelling and sovereign imagination”.
“It is a capacious work in which Alexis Wright takes on the role of creative custodian, singing the songs of unceded lands,” the judges’ statement said.
“[Wright] bears witness to the catastrophic transformations wrought by white fantasies, against which Indigenous ingenuity still stands, its connection to Country unbroken.”
Accepting the award in Sydney, Wright was elated, saying: “I never expect things like this. I already thought winning a Miles Franklin once was a miracle. Winning twice is monumental and unbelievable to me.
“The thinking and writing of Praiseworthy took about 10 years. In that time, I would say that barely a moment would pass where I did not have thoughts about this book, and I continually carried it in my mind during the years while working on another book that became Tracker.”
Wright described Praiseworthy as “a book that tried to capture the spirit of our times, and to tell a story of the growing complexity about what happens to people caught in a world controlled and manipulated by others”.
“I am in awe of receiving this prize,” she said. “It will take me a long time to unpack … I do not expect the privilege of being able to write another book like this. But who knows? Believing in the unbelievable has got me here.”
In May, Wright became the first person to win the $60,000 Stella prize for literature twice, for Praiseworthy.
The novel has been lauded around the world, having won the James Tait Black memorial prize, the UK’s oldest prize for literature, and for making the six-book shortlist for the €100,000 International Dublin literary award, voted on by librarians around the world. Earlier this year the New York Times hailed it as “the most ambitious and accomplished Australian novel of this century”.
Wright told the Guardian in May that the 736-page novel took her almost a decade to complete.
“We need works of scale in literature at the moment, because of the urgency of what’s happening,” she said, referring to the novel’s exploration of the climate crisis and the traumatic legacy of the Howard government’s 2007 intervention in remote Indigenous communities.
Named for the fictional former tidy town in which the novel is set, Praiseworthy is shrouded in a mysterious haze, and the novel’s protagonist, variously called Cause Man Steel, Widespread and Planet, seeks to turn the impending environmental disaster into a money making scheme, corralling the outback’s sprawling feral donkey population into a fossil fuel-free transportation conglomerate.
Meanwhile, his eight-year-old son Tommyhawk, informed by an incessant news feed from coverage of the “Little Children are Sacred” report, convinces himself that paedophiles lurk everywhere in Praiseworthy, and reports his own brother, named Aboriginal Sovereignty, to police for marrying his 15-year-old girlfriend.
The Miles Franklin judges described Wright’s literary technique as “a superb mash-up of different languages, ancient and modern”, displaying “an exceptional mastery of craft”.
“Through its sheer ambition, astringency and audacity, Praiseworthy redraws the map of Australian literature and expands the possibilities of fiction,” the judges said.
Wright was shortlisted alongside Gregory Day’s The Bell of the World, André Dao’s Anam, Sanya Rushdi’s Hospital, Jen Craig’s Wall and Hossein Asgari’s Only Sound Remains. The prize was established through the will of My Brilliant Career author Stella Miles Franklin, for the “advancement, improvement and betterment” of Australian literature.
Wright’s contribution to activism and exploration of First Nations issues through her distinctive literary style earned her a fellowship with the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2014.
In winning the Miles Franklin twice, Wright joins the ranks of other two-time winners Michelle de Kretser, Kim Scott, Thomas Keneally and Patrick White.
This year’s judging panel included Mitchell Librarian of the State Library of NSW and chair Richard Neville, literary scholars Jumana Bayeh, Hsu-Ming Teo and Mridula Nath Chakraborty, and critic James Ley.
