Praiseworthy is a novel by Alexis Wright that won the 2024 James Tait Black Prize – Fiction, the 2024 Stella Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award. It is set in a small Aboriginal town dominated by a haze cloud and follows Cause Man Steel's vision of a national donkey transport scheme. However, not all of Praiseworthy agrees, and outrage ferments at his desecration of traditional land. The novel is told with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned and is a marvel of explosive sentences, a shock to allegory, an outraged cry against oppression, and a biting satire for the end of days.

Format: Paperback / softback
Publication date: 02 November 2023
Publisher: And Other Stories

Winner of the 2024 James Tait Black Prize – Fiction Winner of the 2024 Stella Prize Shortlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award Winner of the 2023 Queensland Award for Literary Fiction Shortlisted for the 2023 Queensland Premiers Award for a Work of State Significance,Queensland Literary Awards Longlisted for the 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award Longlisted for the Climate Fiction Prize In a small Aboriginal town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both ecological disaster and a gathering of the ancestors, Cause Man Steel is chasing a mad vision: a national donkey transport scheme that will guarantee his peoples independence forever. He finds, however, as he bundles feral donkeys into his Ford Falcon and dumps them en masse in the cemetery, that not all of Praiseworthy agrees. Outrage ferments at his desecration of traditional land, while Causes wife Dance seeks refuge with butterflies and dreams of moving their family to China. Bad feelings reach fever pitch when citizens catch wind of the suicide of Aboriginal Sovereignty, Causes eldest son. All are distraught – all, that is, except eight-year-old Tommyhawk Steel, who, with his brother gone, gleefully pursues his dream of becoming white and powerful. Told with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned, Praiseworthy is a marvel of explosive sentences, a shock to allegory, an outraged cry against oppression, and a biting satire for the end of days. ‘Im awed by the range, experiment, and political intelligence of Alexis Wrights work. She is vital on the subject of land and people. Robert Macfarlane, New York Times Book Review

Winner of the 2024 James Tait Black Prize – Fiction

Winner of the 2024 Stella Prize

Shortlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award

Winner of the 2023 Queensland Award for Literary Fiction

Shortlisted for the 2023 Queensland Premiers Award for a Work of State Significance, Queensland Literary Awards

Longlisted for the 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award

Longlisted for the Climate Fiction Prize

In a small Aboriginal town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both ecological disaster and a gathering of the ancestors, Cause Man Steel is chasing a mad vision: a national donkey transport scheme that will guarantee his peoples independence forever. He finds, however, as he bundles feral donkeys into his Ford Falcon and dumps them en masse in the cemetery, that not all of Praiseworthy agrees. Outrage ferments at his desecration of traditional land, while Causes wife Dance seeks refuge with butterflies and dreams of moving their family to China. Bad feelings reach fever pitch when citizens catch wind of the suicide of Aboriginal Sovereignty, Causes eldest son. All are distraught – all, that is, except eight-year-old Tommyhawk Steel, who, with his brother gone, gleefully pursues his dream of becoming white and powerful. Told with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned, Praiseworthy is a marvel of explosive sentences, a shock to allegory, an outraged cry against oppression, and a biting satire for the end of days. ‘Im awed by the range, experiment, and political intelligence of Alexis Wrights work. She is vital on the subject of land and people. Robert Macfarlane, New York Times Book Review

Dimension: 198 x 129 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781913505929