Carpentaria

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Carpentaria

By: Alexis Wright

Narrated by: Isaac Drandich

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About this listen

Carpentaria is Alexis Wright's second novel, an epic set in the Gulf country of north-western Queensland, Australia. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, farce and politics. The novel teems with extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, the queen of the rubbish-dump Angel Day and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stride like giants across this storm-swept world.

Winner of the 2007 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Fiction

Genre Fiction

Literary Fiction

Thought-Provoking

Editorial reviews

A rich and inventive tapestry of interwoven tales set among the aborigines of northwestern Queensland, Australia. Author Alexis Wright experiments with both form and language to create a startlingly original story that's both tragic and comic, using tales that blend the political with the mythological, the local and the universal. Although sometimes challenging, listeners are likely to enjoy the trip, and the novel coheres in startling ways at its center. Performer Isaac Drandich's deep, friendly voice provides an accessible narration that counterbalances some of the more challenging material.

Critic Reviews

"Wright breaks all the rules of grammar and syntax to sweep us along on a great torrent of language that thrills and amazes with its inventiveness and humour and with the sheer power of its storytelling. It's brutal and confronting and it's sad and funny at the same time. Like the Gulf Country itself, this is big enough to lose yourself in." ( Sydney Morning Herald).
"A swelling, heaving tsunami of a novel: stinging, sinuous, salted with outrageous humour, sweetened by spiralling lyricism and swaggering with the confident promise of a tale dominated by risk, roguery and revelation." ( The Australian)

Most relevant

Carpentaria held my attention from the very start.... this intriguing, sometimes lovely, sometimes sad and sometimes shudderingly terrifying, but always honest story, brought back wonderful memories of my time living in Arnhem Land and the magic, the pride and deep connection to their spiritual roots, which is an integral part of the people of The Carpentaria.