Alexis Wright is one of Australia's finest Aboriginal writers. CARPENTARIA is her second novel, an epic set in the Gulf country of north-western Queensland, from where her people come. The novel's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight's renegade Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, farce and politics. The novel teems with extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, the queen of the rubbish-dump Angel Day and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stride like giants across this storm-swept world.

亚历克西斯•赖特（Alexis Wright,1950- ），澳大利亚著名原住民作家。她是生活在澳大利亚卡彭塔利亚湾南部高原瓦安伊部落的成员。亚历克西斯•赖特的曾祖父是十九世纪下半叶流落到澳大利亚的中国人。

亚历克西斯•赖特也是澳大利亚著名的捍卫原住民权利的社会活动家。她曾经为澳大利亚土著人的土地权、为北部地区原住民自治政府和宪法的改革，为抵制官方政策对原住民利益的损害，奔走呼号，做了多年斗争。她在捍卫原住民权利的报刊工作多年，经常发表针砭时弊的文章。一九九七年，亚历克西斯•赖特出版了《格洛格酒之战》（Grog War）。这本书深刻剖析了生活在偏僻的滕南特克里克地区的原住民与格洛格酒有关的严重的社会问题，引起广泛关注。同年，她的长篇小说《希望的土地》（Plains of Promise），获英联邦文学创作提名奖，新南威尔士总理小说奖和年度文学奖，并被翻译成多种文字出版。但是，迄今为止，亚历克西斯•赖特最受欢迎的作品是她的长篇小说《卡彭塔利亚湾》。

亚历克西斯•赖特创作的新小说《天鹅》（The Swan Book）将于二〇一二年出版。目前她是西悉尼大学文学院研究员，RMIT大学荣誉博士。