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And Other Stories acquires two works by Australian author Wright
And Other Stories has acquired the rights to Praiseworthy and Tracker by the Australian author Alexis Wright. Senior editor Tara Tobler acquired UK and Europe rights from Alexandra Christie at Giramondo in Australia.
The synopsis for Praiseworthy reads: “In a small town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in following the dance of butterflies and scours the internet to find out how she can seek repatriation for her aboriginal/Chinese family to China. One of their sons, called Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide. The other, Tommyhawk, wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming white and powerful. This is a novel which pushes allegory and language to its limits.”
Praiseworthy will publish with Giramondo in Australia in April 2023, and with And Other Stories in the UK and Europe in October.
Meanwhile, Tracker is described as a “collective memoir” of the charismatic aboriginal leader, political thinker and entrepreneur Tracker Tilmouth, who died in Darwin in 2015 at the age of 62. Born of interviews with Tilmouth’s family, friends, colleagues and the politicians he influenced, the book is described as a “testament to the powerful role played by storytelling in contemporary aboriginal life as it is to the legacy of an extraordinary man”. On publication in Australia in 2017, the book was awarded the Stella Prize, the Magarey Medal and the Queensland Literary Award.
Wright said she was “delighted” that And Other Stories would be bringing her stories to the UK and Europe.
Tobler added: “Praiseworthy is extraordinary. Page after page of exploding miraculous sentences. Its satire is eviscerating and moving. It was immediately clear to us how essential this work is. Wright has jumped her own bar in terms of energy, experiment and performance.”
Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. She held the position of Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne between 2017–2022. Wright is the only author to win both the Miles Franklin Award (in 2007 for Carpentaria) and the Stella Prize (in 2018 for Tracker).
