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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

 WINNER of the NSW Premier's Literary Award Multicultural NSW Award 2017
Shortlisted for the Nita B Kibble Award 2018
Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction 2017
Shortlisted for the ABIA Biography Book of the Year 2017
Shortlisted for the Indie Award for Non-Fiction 2017
Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2017

'Maxine Beneba Clarke is a powerful and fearless storyteller' Dave Eggers, international bestselling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

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 multi-award-winning Foreign Soil, comes The Hate Race: a powerful, funny, and at times devastating memoir about growing up black in white middle-class Australia.

'There is a tendency to talk about a young author such as Clarke as a 'writer to watch' with the expectation that she may, one day, achieve the extraordinary. With The Hate Race, she already has; don't watch, watch out.' Beejay Silcox The Australian

'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.' - Books + Publishing Art & Literature Authors Political Science Politics & Government Women Heartfelt Funny Thought-Provoking Inspiring
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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