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Carpentaria / Alexis Wright.

Centred on the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance, a township shaped by cyclones, monsoonal floods and a river that spurns human endeavour with its incomprehensible tides, it tells the story of the powerful Phantom family. Led by Norm Phantom, the great fish-embalming king of time, legendary storyteller, suspected murderer and leader of the Pricklebush people, the Phantoms battle to retain sovereignty over a country where "legends and ghosts live side by side". Sovereignty depends on stories. The official version of the region's history makes no mention of the Phantoms or the Great War of the Dump that burst the Pricklebush people apart and set Eastsider against Westsider. Nor does it mention the old tribal tensions that resurfaced and the search for lost ancestral stories that lay claim to traditional ownership.

Item Information
Barcode Shelf Location Collection Volume Ref. Branch Status Due Date Res.
C9009761271 F WRI
Adult fiction   Stratford Branch . . On Loan . 26 Mar 2024
. Catalogue Record 795313 ItemInfo Beginning of record . Catalogue Record 795313 ItemInfo Top of page .
Catalogue Information
Field name Details
ISBN 9781920882310
Author Wright, Alexis, 1950-
Title Carpentaria / Alexis Wright.
Published Artarmon, N.S.W. : Giramondo, 2012.
Physical description 519 p. ; 20 cm.
General note "Published ... for the Writing & Society Research Group at the University of Western Sydney" -- T.p. verso.
Summary Centred on the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance, a township shaped by cyclones, monsoonal floods and a river that spurns human endeavour with its incomprehensible tides, it tells the story of the powerful Phantom family. Led by Norm Phantom, the great fish-embalming king of time, legendary storyteller, suspected murderer and leader of the Pricklebush people, the Phantoms battle to retain sovereignty over a country where "legends and ghosts live side by side". Sovereignty depends on stories. The official version of the region's history makes no mention of the Phantoms or the Great War of the Dump that burst the Pricklebush people apart and set Eastsider against Westsider. Nor does it mention the old tribal tensions that resurfaced and the search for lost ancestral stories that lay claim to traditional ownership.
Subject Aboriginal Australian literature
Land tenure -- Australia -- Queensland
Storytelling in literature
Australian fiction -- 21st century
Aboriginal Australians -- Folklore -- Fiction
Queensland -- History -- Fiction
Carpentaria, Gulf of (N.T. and Qld.) -- Fiction.
Additional author University of Western Sydney Writing & Society Research Group.
Catalogue Information 795313 Beginning of record . Catalogue Information 795313 Top of page .