This event will go live at 1pm on 2 November. Please scroll down to the bottom of the page and press play.

Book can be ordered here.

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 … Praiseworthy is an epic set in the north of Australia, an outraged cry against oppression and a biting satire for the end of days. It has the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned. 

Alexis Wright, a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria, is one of Australia’s most acclaimed writers. She is the author of prize-winning novels Carpentaria and The Swan Book,  has won the Miles Franklin Award, the 2024 James Tait Black Prize for Fiction and is the first writer to win the Stella Prize twice

“The layering of time and the riot of language are Wright’s great themes and raw materials, and in “Praiseworthy” — the most ambitious and accomplished Australian novel of this century — they twist and shimmer, doomed forever to their violent pas de deux.” Samuel Rutter The New York Times Book Review

Deirdre Osborne Hon. FRSL is an Australian-born academic, who is Professor of Literature and Drama in English. She teaches in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London and is Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Co-ordinator for the School of Arts and Humanities.

The event goes live on the date and time advertised in the festival programme – see the bottom of the event page for the link to the podcast.