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The Hate Race

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The Hate Race

By: Maxine Beneba Clarke
Narrated by: Zahra Newman
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About this listen

'Against anything I had ever been told was possible, I was turning white. On the surface of my skin, a miracle was quietly brewing....'

Suburban Australia. Sweltering heat. Three-bedroom blonde brick. Family of five. Beat-up Ford Falcon. Vegemite on toast. Maxine Beneba Clarke's life is just like all the other Aussie kids' on her street. Except for this one glaring, inescapably obvious thing.

From one of Australia's most exciting writers and the author of the multiaward-winning Foreign Soil comes The Hate Race: a powerful, funny, and at times devastating memoir about growing up black in white middle-class Australia.

©2016 Maxine Beneba Clarke (P)2016 Hachette Australia Pty Ltd Art & Literature Authors Political Science Politics & Government Women Heartfelt Funny Thought-Provoking Inspiring

Critic Reviews

"Maxine Beneba Clarke is a powerful and fearless storyteller." (Dave Eggers, international best-selling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius)
"Technically, this book is near-perfect." ( Books + Publishing - five stars)
"Maxine Beneba Clarke's storytelling in The Hate Race has a heft to it that is at once steeped in history, and also exquisitely and playfully modern; it is lyrical, sincere and ironic, but above all, it is fierce. What starts out as a nostalgic childhood memoir soon turns into a revealing account of racism in Australia. The Hate Race explores the sun-drenched, suburban, middle-class childhood of Clarke and her siblings, born in Australia to parents of Jamaican and Guyanese descent who emigrated from England in the 1970s. It moves from West Indian folkloric flourishes into familiar childhood episodes, only to deliver, again and again, that appalling gut punch: that being black in Australia is to be the subject of racism. Technically, this book is near-perfect. At the beginning and end of chapters, and at select moments throughout the narrative, Clarke emphasises the storytelling with exquisite stylistic repetitions: 'this is how it sang', 'this is how it stalks us', 'this is how it happened, or else what's a story for'. Never before have I read narrative repetition executed with such precision, poetry and power. The Hate Race will appeal to anyone with an interest in Australian history, culture and identity today." (Amy Vuleta, Books + Publishing)
"It's unputdownable." (Jane Hutcheon, host of One Plus One)
All stars
Most relevant
A powerful personal story showing the devastating and ongoing impacts racism has on people's lives.

Insightful story

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A really well written glance into Australia's multicultural society of the 1980s and 1990s.
Maybe I was just lucky in my upbringing and in the environment my parents brought me up in, but I just don't recall that time period being quite as harsh as portrayed in Clarke's writing.
But, to be fair, I am a white (first generation) Australian of Scottish descent, so I obviously (in my bubble of youth) just didn't notice.
I am not saying that the behaviour described didn't, or would not have happened (I'm not that naive). But I will say, looking back on my childhood and looking at the world today, I'm eternally grateful for my parents of that era. For I seem to have ventured through childhood (and most of my adult hood) not even noticing the colour of ones skin, the choice of ones deity, or even ones sexual preference.
I guess I was one of the lucky few of the time, who grew up believing that people are just people, regardless of how they are packaged.
While I'm not naive enough to believe that this behavior no longer happens, Clarke's writing has reignited in me, a more aware and observant approach to my own community.
Beautifully narrated by Zahra Newman

Eye-Opening and Thought Provoking

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Reading 'the world & me' recently I stupidly thought this level of racism didn't exist in Australia. How naive!

Racial Relations in modern Australia

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Loved this story, sad but true. I grew up in the area book was set in and I can relate.

Brilliant!

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Beautifully written and performed, singing brutal truths about racism and bullying growing up black in suburban Sydney, and still resonating now. Listening, I wept in bitter anger, as Maxine tells the story of her school days, dismayingly familiar monstrous classmates and disappointing teachers, and laughed at her charming descriptions of life in the 70's and 80's from daggy dad, ovalteenies and cabbage patch kids to Nick the Greeks disastrous hair straightening....

Beautiful and brutal

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