WEBVTT - Read This: Alexis Wright Is the 2024 Miles Franklin Winner 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:03.720 Hey there, it's Ruby Jones. Our colleagues at read This 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.360 routinely hosts the brightest and best writers from Australia and 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:10.400 around the world. Today, we're going to hear a conversation 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.280 with Alexis Write. Alexis is one of Australia's most gifted 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:19.239 and important writers. Her previous books, including Carpenteria and Tracker, 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:24.079 have won numerous literary prizes, and her latest Praiseworthy, was 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:28.280 just awarded this year's Miles Franklin. Michael Williams is the 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.319 host of read This, and he's with me now. 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.680 Hi, Michael. Hi, Ruby, Michael. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.440 I know you're a big fan of Alexis Wright's work, 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.960 so I wonder if you could start by telling me 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:40.640 a bit about what drew you to her writing. 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.720 She is an absolutely phenomenal author, and her two thousand 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.440 and six novel Carpenteria is a modern Australian classic. I 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:50.879 recommend if I'm talking to anyone about kind of what 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.080 are the books of Australian literature over the past kind 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:55.840 of twenty years or so, that you need to read. 0:00:56.120 --> 0:01:00.080 Carpenteria sits atop any list. Alexis is a member of 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.400 the Way New Nation So she comes from the southern 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.840 highlands of the Gulf of Carpenteria and she spent decades 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.280 working as an activist and an advocate for her people, 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.240 and wrote some kind of amazing works of non fiction, 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:13.800 one called grog Nation that she wrote very early in 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.760 her career. But her novels just absolutely kind of reconceive 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.600 what you can do in the realm of literature in Australia. 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.960 They're exhilarating to read, they're really terrific reads, but they're 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:25.560 also really important books. 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:30.000 And Michael praiseworthy. It also won this year's Stellar Prize, 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:34.440 and it's received critical acclaim both in Australia and internationally. 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.839 So what is it about this book that has everyone 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:38.560 in agreement? 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.759 It's very funny to call a book praiseworthy and then 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.000 have it attract so much praise. It feels like kind 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.360 of nominative determinism or something. But it is in every 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:50.480 way a praiseworthy book, as you say with it. Alexis 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.920 has achieved a whole lot of firsts. She's the first 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.800 writer to win the Stella and the Miles Franklin Award 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.320 for the same book. She's the first writer to win 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:02.600 two stellar prizes. This book's won a heap of awards, 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:04.400 and I think it's in no small way because of 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.280 a book that feels really timely. It's a book part 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.240 about climate crisis. It's a book about Aboriginal sovereignty. It's 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:13.720 a book about the ways in which the failures of policy, 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:18.080 of imagination and of empathy in Australia today function and 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.000 the effect it has on people's lives. I cannot recommend 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:21.680 it more highly. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.000 Coming up in just a moment, Alexis Wright is the 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.040 twenty twenty four Miles Franklin winner. 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:30.720 Back when I was at university, I did my honors 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:33.960 thesis on the Miles Franklin Award. I know, I was 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.920 very cool. It was a useful lens with which to 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.880 think about Australian literature. At that point, the award had 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.600 been going for about fifty years and despite a spotty history, 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.680 it remained the country's pre eminent literary prize, and it 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:49.920 was supposed to be for the work of literature that 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.960 reflected Australian life in any of its phases. Now you'd 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.079 think that sounds like a generous, open set of criteria, 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.320 one that you'll be able to accommodate a change in 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.080 culture and a multiplicity of voices, but by the early 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.720 twenty first century it had congealed into favoring a particular 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:12.560 kind of Australian narrative, historical novels, novels with rural settings, anglocentric, 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:16.280 predominantly mail. For a time, the award made the news 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.160 only when there was some kind of controversy attached, rather 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:23.119 than to celebrate the winner. Helen Darvill manufactured a Ukrainian 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.480 ancestry for herself and led her publishers in a traditional 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.200 Ukrainian dance when she won, before being exposed as a grifter. 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:35.360 Another year, judges disqualified Frank Moorehouse's Grand Days because it 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.120 was set overseas. Yet another year, every one of the 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:43.040 shortlisted authors was a man. That last one led to 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.600 the creation of the Stellar Prize, also named after Myles Franklin, 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.040 to provide a counterweight to the limitations of the more 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:55.040 established award. But somehow the award has prevailed. The Stellar 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.880 Prize clearly led to a shakeup and a greater sense 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:02.280 of awareness by Miles Franklin administered that Australian life, in 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:06.240 any of its phases meant more than just sepiotoned realism, 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.640 and this year, for the first time, the same book 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:13.120 has won both the Stellar Prize and the Miles Franklin Award. 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.280 It's a book that's also won a slew of other prizes, 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:21.039 including Britain's prestigious James Tate Black Fiction Prize. Its author 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.400 became the first person to ever win the Stellar Prize 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.120 twice and join the limited ranks of people who have 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:30.480 won the Miles Franklin multiple times. Judges called it an 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:35.440 astonishing feat of storytelling and sovereign imagination, saying it's a 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:40.280 capacious work singing the songs of unseeded lands that bears 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.960 witness to the catastrophic transformations wrought by white fantasies against 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:50.840 which indigenous ingenuity still stands, its connection to country unbroken. 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:56.440 The book is called Praiseworthy and its author is Alexis Wright. 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:01.040 She joins us today, I'm Michael Williams, and this is read. 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.880 This a show about the books we love and the 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:12.960 stories behind them. Alexis Writer is a member of the 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:15.679 Juan Yew nation from the southern highlands of the Gulf 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.640 of Carpenteria. Her two thousand and six novel Carpenteria for 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.520 which she won her first Miles Franklin is an enduring classic. 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.240 Its follow up, The Swan Book, a future set response 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:31.200 to the Northern Territory Intervention, is a personal favorite, and 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:35.919 her polyvocal oral history of visionary Aboriginal leader Tracker Tillmouth, 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.760 won the Stellar Prize in twenty seventeen. Around the time 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.480 she was working on Tracker, she had the idea for 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.880 a new novel, a big novel. Praiseworthy is the name 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.120 of the fictional town at the heart of that story, 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.280 a town that has been enveloped by a cloud of hayes, 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:59.719 part unsettled ancestors, part environmental disaster. Alexis is an extraordinary author, 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.680 and I wanted to introduce her today with words that 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.320 do her and her contribution justice. And I'm going to 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.040 defer to the words of a previous read this guest, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.320 Tony Birch, who wrote a profile of her for The Monthly. 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:18.039 Tony wrote, Alexis right is an Aboriginal woman. From January 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.599 twenty sixth, seventeen eighty eight until this day, the moment 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.320 you read these words, no group of people on this 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:28.520 continent have suffered greater human rights abuses than Aboriginal women. 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.360 Their country has been vandalized and stolen, as have their 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:37.320 loved ones. Every conceivable barrier, beit the gun, a prison cell, 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:42.680 a racist education system, men has attempted to silence them. 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.239 To understand the failures of systems of racism and abuse 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.640 is to know courage and tenacity. Alexis Right is as 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.960 strong as any person I know. Never mistake her auntiness 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.200 as a sign. She's a pushover for when push comes 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.680 to shove and she feels an no need to defend 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:05.400 her people and country. Right is a ferocious warrior. She's 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.200 also loving and generous, and we will always need her. 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.880 I began our conversation by asking Alexis about her grandmother, 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.440 a woman I know played an important role in her 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.040 conception of storytelling. 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:24.600 Well, she's somebody that I love dearly. From a very 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:29.239 early age, I would often run away from my mother 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.280 or away from home, and as soon as my mother 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:36.160 turned her back, I'd be over the front fence and 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.360 heading to her place. From about the age of three, 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:41.920 she lived on the edge of town. She just had 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:46.720 a house of corrugated iron place and it had dirt floors. 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:51.880 She didn't have any electricity, and she was a fantastic gardener, 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.640 and that comes from the Chinese side of the family. 0:07:55.880 --> 0:08:00.720 Her father who had a market garden sort of vegetables 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:05.160 and up at Lawn Hill in the Gulf of Carpent 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:09.120 Terrier where he met my great grandmother, who was a 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.560 warn you lady, and she couldn't read or rite, but 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:17.280 she had a great interest in the world and people 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:23.080 around her. She often went walking around the dry riverbeds 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.960 and down the rubbish tip to get old tin cans 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.040 for her pop plants, and she liked to visit people 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.360 along the river bank who were camping. She'd always stop 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:39.120 and say hello and have a talk. She liked meeting 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.800 people and talking to people. She'uld go to town every 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.960 other day because she didn't have any electricity. She had 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.280 an old kerosene fridge and so she would go to 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:51.840 town to buy some small things that she might need 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.560 for her cooking. Usually she loved to cook cabbage stew 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.880 and rice, which is very good. It's a very popular 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.520 dish amongst Aboriginal people across Northern Australia. When she went 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.480 to town, it was quite a long walk and she'd 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.560 call into anybody's house whether they were averaged all or 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.199 not averaged all people. It made herself very comfortable. She 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:18.880 would expect people to welcome her and give her, you know, 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.319 a glass of water if she needed a glass of water, 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.319 or make her a cup of tea. She just had 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:30.200 this ability to treat everybody equally and expect to be 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:31.800 treated well in return. 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.120 I think that's a nice way to approach the world. 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:40.400 Yeah, she was just a beautiful person, and I became 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.559 like her little shadow. I think she had lots of grandchildren. 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.760 We have a very big family. I have a lot 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.680 of cousins and you know now we number in the hundreds, 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:54.720 you know, maybe more, I don't know, but there's a 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:56.520 lot that's pretty great. 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.959 In a lecture that you gave it the Sydney Opera 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.920 back in two thousand and one, you said your grandmother 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.400 had stories to explain everything who we are, who each 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.160 of us were, and the place on our traditional country. 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.880 That was very deep and special to her. She was 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.839 our memory. She was what not forgetting was all about. 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.120 It was through her that I learned to imagine. 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.400 I think so I learned to imagine through her because 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.200 of the way she described everything around her. At the story. 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.200 You know, she would tell just how she saw the world. 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.079 It was a very cultural way of seeing things, and 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.240 you had to be able to imagine these things, and 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:37.880 I did. And she always talked about her homeland, you know, 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:40.640 up in the golf carpenteria. She always wanted to go 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.480 back because it was a time when people weren't able 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.080 to stay on that traditional country. So she always talked 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.080 about that and the way she would describe it, it 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:52.640 just seemed like the most beautiful place in the world. 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.520 But it was a hard place too. But yeah, she 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.800 did teach me to see things differently and to just imagine, 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.560 and I think that was my saving grace. Really. I 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.160 think I was very fortunate to have had a grandmother 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.000 that I could be close to, because it was a 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.360 struggle for my mother, and my father died when I 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:13.000 was very young. 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.200 Did she talk to you differently because you were a child? 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.240 Do you remember? I mean, did she edit stories or 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.520 did she shape the world a particular way for you 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:22.839 as a child. 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.920 I listened to her talking to other people, talking to family, 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.679 you know, family members would come to Grandma's place and 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.840 they'd all sit outside and drag tea and talk and 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:41.480 tell stories and gossip. But also there were stories about 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:46.520 traditional cultural things that were just spoken about in passing. 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.120 So I just picked up a lot of that when 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.760 I was a child. I don't think you know she 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.800 especially sat me down just to tell me your particular stories. 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.400 I just heard them through her talking and other family 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:04.240 members talk together, and her talking to people wherever she went. 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:09.760 How much do you think those heard conversations in your life, 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:14.480 and you know, whether their gossips or their old stories 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:19.280 or whatever the stories they are have infused and influenced 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.400 the way you approach your writing practice. 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.720 I think the writing practice comes from a number of things, Michael. 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.480 Part of it comes from my conscience that's been shaped 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:35.319 by people like my grandmother and family members, and also 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.560 through the work that I've done through my life working 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.840 for our own people, in our own organizations, and for 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.960 our concerns and land rights. I think I was very 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:52.880 fortunate that you had access to some really great orators 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.440 from our world. I think I was very lucky and 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.800 fortunate to have had access to people like that who 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.960 were always given us guidance as younger people, and in 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:07.360 fact they are about my real university and where I 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.840 really learned, you know, from coming through you know, a 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.920 school system that wasn't particularly something that I could embrace. 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.959 And there's when I less school, there was a number 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.320 of older people, you know in our world who you 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.120 took on a younger people like us, like myself, and 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.680 taught us. They've virtually taught us to read and write. 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.640 They taught us to have an inquiry in mind, and 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:37.120 to imagine and to research and you know, find ways. 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.800 They expected us to do all these things. When I 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.280 first started working, you know in our world, you know, 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.240 with a lot of people like that, they would have meetings, 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.040 you know, and they would go on for hours, and 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.360 that want someone like me to take the minutes. They 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.439 expected me to write down every word, not just the 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.480 points of what came out of the meetings, but write 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.400 down every word. And I guess we didn't have money 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.560 to buy a tape recorder, okay, with the human tape recorder. 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.760 But it was more than that. It was an education 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:13.240 that were teaching people like myself to listen to here, 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.240 to think, to see what's happening in our world and 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.760 who we are, you know, what culture is all about. 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.800 And they expected us to go out do the reading, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.880 do the writing and find out what are the indigenous 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.680 people are doing across the world. You know, what's happening 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.360 in the legal system in other places in the world 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:37.080 that could help us here. I then studied literature from 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.960 across the world, and I still do that to find 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.080 out how I could write the type of writing that 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.720 I'm doing now. It's been something that I'd be building 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.760 for a long time now. To reach something like praiseworthy. 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:55.760 I mean, it's such a towering achievement and so utterly 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.080 your own voice, your own rhythms. The thing that strikes 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.360 me above all else about this book is the ways 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:09.000 in which you've found entirely a kind of different register 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.680 in the way it's done. In one interview you talked 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:13.880 about to write it, you knew you had to write 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:18.120 it off key from regular fiction and find that different, 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:19.800 different note. 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.680 That's right. I thought really deeply about how to write 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:24.840 this book. I knew it would be a big book. 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.960 I didn't realize it would be this big. And you know, 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.360 I wanted to write a book that the spirit of 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:35.320 the times, and I was deeply concerned about environmental issues. 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:40.200 I'm deeply concerned about our ability as Aboriginal people to 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:44.040 cope with climate change, and you know, we've gone through 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.920 a climatic change in the past with the longest living 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.400 culture in the world, and I thought really deeply about 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:54.200 those things and how did our ancestors survive over tens 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:58.120 of thousands of years. So I was thinking about that 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.480 and trying to figure out how to put this book together. 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.800 And it's not just a story. It's also about the 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.440 tone that I wanted to capture in the book, that rhythm. 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.040 And I knew that, as you said, beter to be 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.400 written off key in a different rhythm. And I thought 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.000 about what we say in the Gulf, we're of one heartbeat, 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.520 and I wondered, well, what does that heartbeat sound like? 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.320 And I felt it sounded like a slow rhythm, and 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:32.640 that's you know, the sound of digeral dooah, darky collapsticks, 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.520 women singing, ceremony, and it's a slow beat and those 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:43.040 sounds that come from the earth in instruments made, you know, 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:48.680 from in a country, and that's the tone I wanted 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.360 to bring it in this book. So I've really worked 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:56.760 and reworked and reworked to make that tone consistent throughout 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:57.120 the book. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.600 I can't I mean, this seems like a non sensical 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:02.920 thing to say, but you achieve a kind of sense 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:08.879 of slow urgency. You know, the book is never less 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:12.560 than kind of furious and grief stricken and full of 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:18.080 these kind of big emotions, but manages to temper them 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.800 through a kind of prevailing spirit of patience or a 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.959 long view. When I spoke once years ago, and I 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.199 remember you saying that when you were younger, you were 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.399 a real hothead and would you know, fly off the 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.520 handle about things. And I'm interested in a career in 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:40.040 advocacy and activism, caring about these issues and these ideas, 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.040 and caring about your community and trying to find ways 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.400 to impress upon an audience the urgency of the thing. 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.720 How did you find the way to slow down while 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:50.760 retaining urgency. 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.520 Oh, this is something I've been taught as well, is 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.640 that to take the long view. I think that right 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.600 in those minutes years ago taught me a lot. Patients, 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.200 and that's what they were aiming for, to teach young 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:08.359 people that you needed to have patients, extreme patients and 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.320 deally what we're dealing with. And I do have a 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:15.879 lot of patients with enormous patients. But at the same time, 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:20.879 you know, there's storms ruined and I watched storms and 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:26.040 seeing you know, the storms that created for us, and 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.159 I see the storms in the Gulf of Carpenteria and 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.600 are huge, the mighty. And the book in the way 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:38.240 is a response to so little we know about our 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.160 world and what's happening in our world and how it's 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.600 shaping and reshaping us. And I wanted to explore all 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:46.600 those things. 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.439 Coming up in just a minute. Alexis reflects more on 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.879 the characters at the heart of Praiseworthy, Cousman Steele and 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.800 his family and chairs. While she felt this book was 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:13.560 so important to write, now here's some more from the miles, 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:19.160 Franklin judges on Praiseworthy. Through its sheer, ambition, astringency and audacity, 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.840 Praiseworthy redraws the map of Australian literature and expands the 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:28.760 possibilities of fiction. They said, beyond the environmental allegory of 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:31.000 the Hayes and a world that feels on the brink 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:35.000 of end times. The book is fiercely passionately engaged with 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:39.439 questions of government control and self determination, reckoning with the 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:45.400 failures of imagination, policy and empathy of contemporary Australia. At 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:49.040 its core stands the steel family. The eldest son is 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.680 called Aboriginal Sovereignty, and he's in a state of despair. 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:55.639 His eight year old brother is consumed by the hateful 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.000 stories he reads on the internet. Their mother, Dance, has 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.399 a deep connection with moths and butterflies and a desire 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.960 to escape, seeking people smuggler to take her to China, 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.479 and the family's father, the main character of the book, 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.959 is on an obsessive quest to save both family and people. 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:18.560 He's known as Widespread and Planet, but mostly by the 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:20.200 name caused Man Steel. 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.600 You know, he's a culture dreamer, and he says a 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:29.040 visionary and he decides he's gope to bring his people 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.119 over the burning planet. And you know, he's obsessed with 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.560 it all, and he can see, like anybody can see, 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.199 that we're not getting much support here, you know, in 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:42.560 recognizing our rights and what our rights really are and 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:47.160 our sovereignty here. So he's finding a way that he's 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.520 going to take his people over the burning planet, and 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:51.880 so they're going to be able to survive to tell 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.600 the tale on the other side, which is what ancestors 0:20:55.640 --> 0:21:00.879 did and got shaped in that time. And it takes time, 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:02.080 and we will survive. 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:08.040 You compellingly make the case for survival. But Cosman's donkey 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:14.560 based vision, I mean, he's a wonderful figure in many ways. 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.439 I understand that Cosman knows more than a bit to 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:19.800 track a till mouth. 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:26.040 Oh not necessarily. Tracker was a far more sophisticated visionary 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:31.160 in a way in terms of developing sustainable economic policy 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:35.960 and an economic vision for Aboriginal people across Northern Australia 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:41.240 or anyway. He had enormous vision, enormous ideas. And here's 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.159 a totally different kettle of fish. But this is a 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:48.880 person who is on a community who's not getting any 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:53.320 support from anybody, and he's trying to create a vision 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:58.200 to help his people ride through the storm of global warming. 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:02.840 So he's about this and he is going to use 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:06.600 his own brain power to try to figure it all out. 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.760 And he's clapped out today and he's going to travel 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.680 all over the country and he's going to fulfill this 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:19.320 vision of creating this global tradesport company that will replace 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:20.480 maybe Quantus. 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.199 That's right, Replace the kangaroo with a donkey is the 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:24.720 only way. 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:29.240 Well, well, the kangaroo is a native animal and honor. 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:30.919 I think the kangaroo is going to do our bidding. 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:33.640 But a donkey might, a donkey might. 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.360 The great tragedy of the book is while Corsman's on 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:42.920 this quest for the next generation of the Steel family, 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:48.119 for Tommy Hawk, and for Aboriginal sovereignty, the stories they're hearing, 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.359 the stories they're being told, the national reality they've inherited, 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:56.240 is one that is limiting their options and indeed steering 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:58.600 them down paths that are not their own. 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.480 This is true, true, And I wanted to think about 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:06.720 what happens to people for generation to generation of bad 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.120 decisions made on their behalf and they're not being able 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:13.480 to do a thing about it, and people spend their 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:17.320 whole lives fighting or you know, for the chance to 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:21.359 be able to design our own future. I've work with 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:25.159 people in the past, you know, we're on ideas of 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:29.040 abertial self government, and I always remember some of these 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:35.080 really senior people, you know, who know this country back 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:38.439 to front. No, it's stories and it's you know, and 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:42.280 so much about this country. It's not funny, and we 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:46.679 don't hear them, and we don't understand what culture is 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:50.159 all about, this long term culture that belongs here. And 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:55.560 I wanted to explore those issues and those concerns and 0:23:55.600 --> 0:23:58.680 what happens to people when you make those people making 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:02.200 those wrong decisions. Government keep making those wrong decisions that 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:05.920 take away that power that senior people would always say 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:11.320 to me, we've always governed ourselves, we have always governed ourselves, 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:14.960 And what do you do? And someone else says, they 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:17.800 govern them for you, and they make the wrong decisions 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:21.320 all the time, what do you do? So I wanted 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:24.400 to try to address that in the book, and address 0:24:24.480 --> 0:24:29.280 that idea of Aboriginal sovereignty, and through that young character, 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:33.880 that beautiful young man who his father had named from 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:37.679 birth Aboriginal sovereignty so you'd always remember who he was. 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:40.280 I think you say in the book he names him 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:43.960