As we gear up towards the announcement of the 2007 Miles Franklin Award winner on June 21, Alexis Wright writes about her shortlisted novel Carpentaria, in "The Australian".
From the start, I knew Carpentaria would not be a book suited to a tourist reader, someone easily satisfied by a cheap day out. I wrote most of the novel while listening to music -- I have an eclectic taste that roams around the world collecting a mixture of traditional, classical, new world, blues and country. One of my intentions was to write the novel as though it was a very long melody made of different forms of music, mixed somehow with the voices of the Gulf. The image that explains this style is that of watching an orchestra while listening to the music. Within the whole spectacle of the performance fleeting moments occur, in which your attention will focus on the sudden rise in the massiveness of the strings, horns, or percussion.
