CITATION
Chancellor,
Professor Alexis Wright is an author and public intellectual, who is admired globally for her exceptional contributions to Australian and Indigenous literature.
Despite adversities faced in her youth, Professor Wright has emerged to become a powerful force in literature and scholarship. A member of the Waanyi nation of the Gulf of Carpentaria, she has worked for a range of organisations, agencies and universities, across Australia, as a researcher, writer, manager and educator.
Professor Wright’s first foray into fiction was the novel Plains of Promise, published by UQ Press in 1997. Her second novel, Carpentaria, earned her the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2007. She was the first individual Indigenous author to receive this accolade.
In 2013, Professor Wright’s third novel, The Swan Book, was shortlisted for both the Miles Franklin and Stella Prize in 2014. Professor Wright’s work of collective memoir, Tracker, won the Stella Prize in 2018 and her most recent novel, Praiseworthy, won the 2024 Stella Prize, making her the first person to win the Stella Prize twice. Praiseworthy was also awarded the UQ Fiction Book Award at the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards.
Professor Wright’s contribution to Australian literature is not confined to the pages of her books. It extendsto her role as the Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne, a position she held from 2018 to 2022. She is currently a Professor in Creative Writing at Western Sydney University.
In 2023, Professor Wright won the Lifetime Achievement in Literature Award, presented by Creative Australia. This award acknowledges the achievements of writers over the age of 60 who have made an outstanding and lifelong contribution to Australian literature.
Chancellor, I present to you Professor Alexis Wright, Doctor of Communication honoris causa of RMIT University, Doctor of Letters honoris causa of Western Sydney University, Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, for the award of Doctor of Letters honoris causa, bestowed by the Senate of The University of Queensland.
