Singing the country afresh: book review of "Carpentaria" by Alexis Wright, Giramondo, Artarmon, NSW.

Abstract

[Extract] On the cover of Alexis Wright's 2007 Miles Franklin Award winning novel is a photograph of the Leichhardt River flowing to the coast through several s-shaped curves. Superimposed on this is a tattoo of the Rainbow Serpent also curved in sympathy with the river. It's an appropriate image because this novel, more than any other I have read about Indigenous life in Australia, foregrounds a mythic and spiritual understanding of the land, its origins, and the place of humans in relation to it.