Professor Alexis Wright’s novel Carpentaria selected for French curriculum
Carpentaria, a 2008 novel by Faculty of Arts Professor Alexis Wright, has been chosen by the French education jury as a compulsory book to be studied on the agrégation curriculum.
It is the first Australian book to be included on the study list in 50 years since Voss (1957), by Nobel Prize Winning author Patrick White.
The agrégation is a highly competitive national examination for teachers and Carpentaria is included on both the external and internal lists. Carpentaria is one of three titles, the others being Shakespeare’s King Henry V (1599) and Henry James’ Wings of the Dove (1902).
Professor Wright said that she was excited by the prospect that Carpentaria will be read and discussed by distinguished scholars in France.
“I am greatly honoured to have my work Carpentaria included in the national curriculum of the French agrégation. It is the first book ever by a First Nation Sovereign author from this Continent,” said Professor Wright.
“I am also delighted that my work will reach a broader audience and will encourage readers to explore the literatures of the world more broadly.”
Professor Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria and is one of Australia’s finest writers. Carpentaria, her second novel, is a soaring epic set in the Gulf country of north-western Queensland, from where her people come.
Carpentaria’s portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are the leaders of the Pricklebush people. It details their battles with old Joseph Midnight’s tearaway Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other.
Professor Wright has also published three non-fiction works: Take Power, an oral history of the Central Land Council; Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory; and Tracker, an award-winning collective memoir of Aboriginal leader, Tracker Tilmouth.
Her books have been published widely overseas, including in China, the US, the UK, Italy, France and Poland.
Professor Wright holds the position of Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne. She is the only author to win both the Miles Franklin Award (in 2007 for Carpentaria) and the Stella Prize (in 2018 for Tracker).