After Aboriginal author Alexis Wright’s
novel, Carpentaria, won the Miles
Franklin Award in 2007, it rapidly achieved the status of a classic. The novel
is widely read and studied in Australia, and overseas, and valued for its
imaginative power, its epic reach, and its remarkable use of language.
Indigenous
Transnationalism brings together eight essays by critics
from seven different countries, each analysing Alexis Wright’s novel Carpentaria from a distinct national
perspective. Taken together, these diverse voices highlight themes from the
novel that resonate across cultures and continents: the primacy of the land;
the battles that indigenous peoples fight for their language, culture and sovereignty;
a concern with the environment and the effects of pollution. At the same time,
by comparing the Aboriginal experience to that of other indigenous peoples,
they demonstrate the means by which a transnational approach can highlight
resistance to, or subversion of, national prejudices.
