Foreign Soil

Description

Winner of ABIA Literary Fiction of the Year Award 2015 Winner of the Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction 2015 Winner of the Victorian Premier's Unpublished Manuscript Award 2013 In Melbourne's western suburbs, in a dilapidated block of flats overhanging the rattling Footscray train lines, a young black mother is working on a collection of stories. The book is called Foreign Soil. Inside its covers, a desperate asylum seeker is pacing the hallways of Sydney's notorious Villawood detention centre, a seven-year-old Sudanese boy has found solace in a patchwork bike, an enraged black militant is on the warpath through the rebel squats of 1960s Brixton, a Mississippi housewife decides to make the ultimate sacrifice to save her son from small-town ignorance, a young woman leaves rural Jamaica in search of her destiny, and a Sydney schoolgirl loses her way. The young mother keeps writing, the rejection letters keep arriving . . . In this collection of award-winning stories, Melbourne writer Maxine Beneba Clarke has given a voice to the disenfranchised, the lost, the downtrodden and the mistreated. It will challenge you, it will have you by the heartstrings. 'Maxine Beneba Clarke is a powerful and fearless storyteller, and this collection - written with exquisite sensitivity and yet uncompromising - will stay with you with the force of elemental truth. Clarke is the real deal, and will, if we're lucky, be an essential voice in world literature for years to come.' - Dave Eggers bestselling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius 'Foreign Soil is a collection of outstanding literary quality and promise. Clarke is a confident and highly skilled writer.' - Hannah Kent, bestselling author of Burial Rites 'An assured and skilful debut' - Weekend Australian

Maxine Beneba Clarke is a widely published Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent. Maxine's short fiction, non-fiction and poetry have been published in numerous publications including Overland, The Age, Meanjin, The Saturday Paper and The Big Issue. Her critically acclaimed short fiction collection Foreign Soil won the ABIA for Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2015 and the 2015 Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Matt Richell Award for New Writing at the 2015 ABIAs and the 2015 Stella Prize. She was also named as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists for 2015. Maxine has published three poetry collections including Carrying the World, which won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry 2017 and was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award. The Hate Race, a memoir about growing up black in Australia won the NSW Premier's Literary Award Multicultural NSW Award 2017 and was shortlisted for an ABIA, an Indie Award, the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and Stella Prize. The Patchwork Bike, Maxine's first picture book with Van T. Rudd was a CBCA Honour Book for 2017.

Foreign Soil is a book in the tradition of Nam Le and Junot Diaz, with echoes of Zadie Smith, Monica Ali and Alice Pung - all writers Clarke finds inspiring. It is also the work of a unique voice and an astonishing ventriloquist. Ten stories, written over several years, enter the minds and hearts and dialects of Africans, West Indians, African-Americans and whites of all descriptions. - The Saturday Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Canberra Times This is a remarkable collection of disparate and disquieting short stories ... Clarke has a chameleon-like ability to inhabit different characters and surroundings ... her stories are powerful and relevant and show her versatility and ability to write local dialects and employ different literary techniques. - Herald Sun In this collection of award-winning stories, Melbourne writer Maxine Beneba Clarke has given a voice to the disenfranchised, the lost, the downtrodden and the mistreated. It will challenge you and grab you by the heartstrings. This is contemporary fiction at its finest. - Good Reading Clarke lobs a Molotov under any reader expecting a literary comfort zone ... [Foreign Soil] marks the arrival of a major new voice in the Australian literary landscape - Australian Bookseller & Publisher It delivers a series of brilliant, moving portraits that reach beyond the tabloid headlines and shed light on some of society's most marginalised groups - GQ Australia [Of Maxine's work] amazing - Tim Minchin an assured and skilful debut - The Weekend Australian