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.

亞曆剋西斯•賴特（Alexis Wright,1950- ），澳大利亞著名原住民作傢。她是生活在澳大利亞卡彭塔利亞灣南部高原瓦安伊部落的成員。亞曆剋西斯•賴特的曾祖父是十九世紀下半葉流落到澳大利亞的中國人。

亞曆剋西斯•賴特也是澳大利亞著名的捍衛原住民權利的社會活動傢。她曾經為澳大利亞土著人的土地權、為北部地區原住民自治政府和憲法的改革，為抵製官方政策對原住民利益的損害，奔走呼號，做瞭多年鬥爭。她在捍衛原住民權利的報刊工作多年，經常發錶針砭時弊的文章。一九九七年，亞曆剋西斯•賴特齣版瞭《格洛格酒之戰》（Grog War）。這本書深刻剖析瞭生活在偏僻的滕南特剋裏剋地區的原住民與格洛格酒有關的嚴重的社會問題，引起廣泛關注。同年，她的長篇小說《希望的土地》（Plains of Promise），獲英聯邦文學創作提名奬，新南威爾士總理小說奬和年度文學奬，並被翻譯成多種文字齣版。但是，迄今為止，亞曆剋西斯•賴特最受歡迎的作品是她的長篇小說《卡彭塔利亞灣》。

亞曆剋西斯•賴特創作的新小說《天鵝》（The Swan Book）將於二〇一二年齣版。目前她是西悉尼大學文學院研究員，RMIT大學榮譽博士。