'From one of Australia's most exciting writers, and the author of the multi-award-winning FOREIGN SOIL, comes THE HATE RACE: a powerful, funny, and at times devastating memoir about growing up black in white middle-class Australia.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'Inspired by the best-selling, award-winning memoir by Caribbean-Australian writer Maxine Beneba Clarke, The Hate Race is an unflinching exploration of the complexities of race in Australia, and the universal search for belonging. Making its theatrical premiere on the Malthouse stage, this powerful story stars Zahra Newman (Wake In Fright), who embodies all characters from the book with astonishing honesty and theatricality.
'The Hate Race follows Maxine’s childhood in Sydney’s western suburbs, as she navigates the sting of otherness. From everyday street encounters to schoolyard battles, Maxine’s story exposes the realities of growing up the child of Black migrants in a predominantly white society. This inventive re-imagining, filled with poetry, music and beats, invites audiences to experience Maxine’s world —exposing biases, challenging societal norms, and asking us to foster empathy and understanding as we seek an inclusive future.
'The Hate Race is more than a theatrical experience—it is a call to action. This is how we change.'
'Writing and risk is a topic that has preoccupied my thoughts for at least the last few years.' (Introduction)
(Introduction)
'Maxine Beneba Clarke is shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize for her memoir The Hate Race. Maxine is the first author to be shortlisted for the Stella Prize twice, after her short story collection, Foreign Soil, was recognised in 2015. In this special Stella interview, Maxine shares some thoughts about the process of memoir writing, the pull of the poetic form, and what it’s really like to write while female.' (Introduction)
'There are certain books that have the knack of getting under your skin. This is why George Bernard Shaw declared Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit to be a far more “seditious” text than Karl Marx’s Das Capital.
'What he was getting at is the power of books to work on your emotions. The intellect can be too cold an instrument to engender empathy, to bring people who are distant from you into your “circle of concern”. And it is precisely this, as philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues, that matters for the pursuit of social justice.
'In 2017, the Stella Prize judges have again come up with a shortlist of books that will engage your brain, but also your heart. They illuminate all the aspects of life that make us frail and vulnerable – sickness, dying, inequality – realities that many of us would prefer to ignore.' (Introduction)
'Maxine Beneba Clarke is shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize for her memoir The Hate Race. Maxine is the first author to be shortlisted for the Stella Prize twice, after her short story collection, Foreign Soil, was recognised in 2015. In this special Stella interview, Maxine shares some thoughts about the process of memoir writing, the pull of the poetic form, and what it’s really like to write while female.' (Introduction)
'The Hate Race begins with a short summation of Clarke's parents' meeting and arrival in Australia as a young, black British couple, then quickly settles into Maxine's own experience. Maxine grew up in a middle-class family full of Play-Doh and tadpoles and Cabbage Patch dolls. The Hate Race draws our attention to how far we are from living in a postracial world, yet Clarke's critique feels compassionate-angry but not without hope, brutally honest but not without acknowledging the love of family and refuge of loyal friends.' (Publication abstract)
