'Continue dreaming and believe in dreams'

 

“We have to think big. Wehave to imagine big, and that's part of the problem. We're letting other peopleimagine and lead us down what paths they want to take us. Sometimes they'revery limited in the way their ideas are constructed. We need to imagine muchmore broadly. That's the work of a writer, and more writers should look at it.” –  AlexisWright

Born in Australia on

 Nov. 25, 1950 Wright is an Indigenous writer and land rights champion forthe native Australian people. 

 

An award nominee for many of her writings, she haspublished both fiction and nonfiction and is a noted essayist as well asnovelist.  Her major nonfiction books are Take Power, ananthology on the history of the land rights movement, and Grog War onthe introduction of alcohol restrictions in her native Tennant Creekarea. 

 

But it is her fiction that has earned her top accolades. Her 2006 book Carpentaria, based on the interconnected stories of several inhabitants of the fictional town ofDesperance on Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria, won both the Miles Franklin Award (Austrailia’s premiere writing prize) and the StellaPrize, an annual award recognizing the best book by a female writer in anygenre.

 

This year, she repeated both honors for her 2023 novel Praiseworthy, a dystopian tale set in a fictional northern Australian community.  She is thefirst Australian author to win both awards twice.   

 

 “My role as a novelist is to explore ideas andimagination,” Wright said.  “Hopefully that will inspire people frommy world to continue dreaming and to believe in dreams.”