STORY AS LAW

Alexis Wright 
Saturday, March 17, 2pm | 60 RMB 

The Aboriginal people of Australia maintain the world’s most ancient storytelling tradition: tales which serve simultaneously as origin myths, collective memories, geographical schematics, and social strictures. Alexis Wright, renowned novelist and Australia’s foremost voice on Aboriginal history and rights, has recently taken a new position at the University of Melbourne to research and document these “story laws”. In this event she introduces the nature of the Aboriginal stories, and explains their seminal influence on her own work, including Carpentaria (2006), which tells the story of Desperance, a fictional town in northwest Queensland; The Swan Book (2013), a magical-realist fable of environmental and social collapse; and Tracker, a collective memoir of an influential Aboriginal leader, recently nominated for the Stella Prize.

Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and her great-grandfather was from Canton. She is an author of fiction and non-fiction, and has written widely on indigenous rights. She is one of the most important Australian voices speaking on the subject of land and belonging, about storytelling and identity, and about the Aboriginal relationship with the rest of Australian society.  Recent publications include the collective memoir Tracker (November 2017), about Aboriginal leader and political thinker Tracker Tilmouth, which has been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Non-Fiction Literary Award; the essay “What Happens When You Tell Somebody Else’s Story” (2016) which was awarded the Hilary McPhee Award 2016; The Swan Book (2013), a phantasmagorical allegory set in a future ravaged by war and climate change, which was awarded the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 2014; and Carpentaria (2006), which was awarded the 2007 Miles Franklin Award. She is the Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne. This author is presented as part of the Australian Writers Week 2018, supported by the Australian Embassy, Beijing and the Australian Copyright Agency limited. 

 亚历克西斯·赖特来自澳大利亚卡彭塔利亚湾瓦安伊部落，她的曾祖父来自中国广东。赖特的文学作品涵盖小说与非虚构；此外她还广泛发文，为原住民权利奔走。作为澳大利亚最重要的作家之一，赖特的写作主题涉及土地与归属感、故事讲述与身份认同，以及原住民与澳大利亚其他社会群体间的关系。赖特近期出版的书籍与发表的作品有：集体回忆录《特拉克》（Tracker，2017），作品通过多人的讲述，回忆了原住民领袖、思想家特拉克·迪尔莫斯的一生，该书入选维多利亚州总理奖非虚构文学奖短名单；议论性散文《当你讲述别人的故事时会发生什么》（What Happens When You Tell Somebody Else’s Story，2016）获2016年希拉里·麦克菲奖；长篇小说《天鹅》（The Swan Books，2013），一个幻影式的讽喻，描绘了一个被战争与气候变化肆虐的未来世界，2014年获澳大利亚文学协会金奖；长篇小说《卡彭塔利亚湾》（Carpentaria， 2006）获2007年迈尔斯·弗兰克林奖。亚历克西斯·赖特目前还担任墨尔本大学澳大利亚文学“布埃斯布维埃”主席。