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y separately published work icon Grog War single work   prose  
Issue Details: First known date: 1997... 1997 Grog War
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Miles Franklin award-winning author Alexis Wright describes how a remote town in Australia dealt with the invasion of grog on their traditional lands. Wright describes the shocking effects of alcohol abuse and racism in this vivid portrayal of a small town fighting to bring about change.

'Wright was commissioned by the Julalikari Council of Tennant Creek to write Grog War to document the enormous struggle it took to introduce some simple restrictions on alcohol in the town. Wright's account of what happened over 10 years ago in the remote town of Tennant Creek is now repeating itself throughout north west Australia.

'It is a controversial conversation. Should alcohol be restricted? Is this racist? Whose decision is it to make? With towns such as Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing putting alcohol restrictions in place with the backing and support of key community members, Wright's story is more relevant than ever.

'Aboriginal elders and community advisors fought for years to put alcohol restrictions in place and they are still fighting. Their courage and tenacity is an inspiration for other towns in northern Australia who are battling against the tide of alcohol abuse and resistance from licencees and the broader community.' (From the publisher's website.) 

Notes

  • 'In Grog War, Alexis Wright sets up a fictional family against the true background of the campaign against grog in the Tennant Creek Aboriginal community.' (Dianne Dempsey, 'Off the Shelf: Society', Age (23 January 2010): 26)
  • Dedication: A book dedicated to the achievements of the traditional Aboriginal elders of Tennant Creek in their war against grog, and to our children and yours.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Other Formats

  • Also large print.
  • Dyslexic edition.

Works about this Work

Alexis Wright’s Novel Activism Lynda Ng , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge Companion to the Australian Novel 2023; (p. 178-193)

'This chapter considers Alexis Wright’s trajectory as a writer from Grog War (1997) to The Swan Book (2013), arguing that her body of work presents a consistent vision that is “at once Aboriginal and Australian, modern and ancient, local and yet outward-looking.” It pays special attention to the notion of “all times,” the relation between form and politics, and how imaginative sovereignty underpins Wright’s work.' (Publication abstract)

Alexis Wright's Publishing History in Three Contexts : Australian Aboriginal, National, and International Per Henningsgaard , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 33 no. 1 2019; (p. 107-124)

'In order to better understand and appreciate Alexis Wright's publishing history, it is important to first place it in the context of the publishing history of Australian Aboriginal literature. Only then can one properly situate it in the larger context of Australian literature. Finally, for full effect, Wright's publishing history should be placed in the context of the international literary marketplace.' (Introduction)

Traces of Territory : Alexis Wright's Grog War (1997) Geoff Rodoreda , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 33 no. 1 2019; (p. 67-78)

'This quotation, which appears as an epigraph on the title page of part 1 of Alexis Wright's 1997 book Grog War, immediately frames the problems associated with alcohol in Aboriginal communities as belonging to the legacies of colonialism. Grog is not a passive killer. Poison and guns were killers in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries; nowadays, alcohol is being used to destroy Aboriginal people, families, and whole communities. Grog is contextualized here, at the beginning of Wright's narrative, as an active force in the continuing destruction of communities, a legacy of colonial control and oppression. And if grog is a legacy of colonialism, then both the colonizer and the colonized are compelled to address its destructive force in postcolonial times. A whole community response is needed to address this historical, structural, and social problem. There is no attempt here either to reinforce victimhood or to elude responsibility in relation to the misuse of alcohol. On the contrary, Grog War tells the story of an Aboriginal community's preparedness to face up to the problems of alcohol abuse, to take initiative in working toward solutions, and to encourage a shared sense of responsibility for managing misuse in one Northern Territory town.' (Introduction)

Richard Flanagan's and Alexis Wright's Magic Nihilism Jamie Derkenne , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 31 no. 2 2017; (p. 276-290, 458)

'Whether it be Sir John Franklin confronting a "sense of his own horror" while hallucinating and dying in Flanagan's Wanting (177), Oblivia, mute and with no agency, possessed only of memories that Bella Donna "has chosen to tell her" in Wright's Swan Book (89) and ending her days in a ghost swamp (334), or Aljaz Cosini finding himself in a "gorge of death" because he has ignored the "language" of the landscape in Flanagan's Death of a River Guide (296-97), both authors write of an erosion of being and purpose, often using landscape and the history inscribed on that landscape to describe existential crisis. Magic realism, even its constituent words, has little relation with what Franz Roh proposed in his seminal 1925 essay on a new form of painting: the term has not only shifted its main focus from one artistic endeavor to another but has often features of surrealism or what Roh (dismissively) called "Expressionism," a term he used to explicitly label Marc Chagall's modernist work, characterized as including animals walking in the sky, heads "popped like corks," "chromatic storms," and distortions of perspective (Faris 17). Wright's dream of a common spirituality of reconciliation, also expressed in interview, also has resonances with Fuentes's belief (33) that all Mexicans need to recognize that Indians are intrinsically part of their culture, their identity and heritage, and must therefore work to ensure justice for that population. [...]the invading colonial culture was initially penal, brutalizing, and authoritative and indeed sought to make the entire landscape an unescapable and perfect prison.' (Publication abstract)

My Intervention (in Cowdy) Phillip Hall , 2015 single work autobiography
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 49.0 2015;
Off the Shelf : Society Dianne Dempsey , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 23 January 2010; (p. 26)

— Review of Grog War Alexis Wright , 1997 single work prose
The Terrible Toll of Grog Highlighted 1997 single work review
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 13 August no. 157 1997; (p. 22)

— Review of Grog War Alexis Wright , 1997 single work prose
Dreaming of her Homeland Todd Condie , 1997 single work column
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 27 August no. 158 1997; (p. 16)
My Intervention (in Cowdy) Phillip Hall , 2015 single work autobiography
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 49.0 2015;
Richard Flanagan's and Alexis Wright's Magic Nihilism Jamie Derkenne , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 31 no. 2 2017; (p. 276-290, 458)

'Whether it be Sir John Franklin confronting a "sense of his own horror" while hallucinating and dying in Flanagan's Wanting (177), Oblivia, mute and with no agency, possessed only of memories that Bella Donna "has chosen to tell her" in Wright's Swan Book (89) and ending her days in a ghost swamp (334), or Aljaz Cosini finding himself in a "gorge of death" because he has ignored the "language" of the landscape in Flanagan's Death of a River Guide (296-97), both authors write of an erosion of being and purpose, often using landscape and the history inscribed on that landscape to describe existential crisis. Magic realism, even its constituent words, has little relation with what Franz Roh proposed in his seminal 1925 essay on a new form of painting: the term has not only shifted its main focus from one artistic endeavor to another but has often features of surrealism or what Roh (dismissively) called "Expressionism," a term he used to explicitly label Marc Chagall's modernist work, characterized as including animals walking in the sky, heads "popped like corks," "chromatic storms," and distortions of perspective (Faris 17). Wright's dream of a common spirituality of reconciliation, also expressed in interview, also has resonances with Fuentes's belief (33) that all Mexicans need to recognize that Indians are intrinsically part of their culture, their identity and heritage, and must therefore work to ensure justice for that population. [...]the invading colonial culture was initially penal, brutalizing, and authoritative and indeed sought to make the entire landscape an unescapable and perfect prison.' (Publication abstract)

Traces of Territory : Alexis Wright's Grog War (1997) Geoff Rodoreda , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 33 no. 1 2019; (p. 67-78)

'This quotation, which appears as an epigraph on the title page of part 1 of Alexis Wright's 1997 book Grog War, immediately frames the problems associated with alcohol in Aboriginal communities as belonging to the legacies of colonialism. Grog is not a passive killer. Poison and guns were killers in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries; nowadays, alcohol is being used to destroy Aboriginal people, families, and whole communities. Grog is contextualized here, at the beginning of Wright's narrative, as an active force in the continuing destruction of communities, a legacy of colonial control and oppression. And if grog is a legacy of colonialism, then both the colonizer and the colonized are compelled to address its destructive force in postcolonial times. A whole community response is needed to address this historical, structural, and social problem. There is no attempt here either to reinforce victimhood or to elude responsibility in relation to the misuse of alcohol. On the contrary, Grog War tells the story of an Aboriginal community's preparedness to face up to the problems of alcohol abuse, to take initiative in working toward solutions, and to encourage a shared sense of responsibility for managing misuse in one Northern Territory town.' (Introduction)

Alexis Wright's Publishing History in Three Contexts : Australian Aboriginal, National, and International Per Henningsgaard , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 33 no. 1 2019; (p. 107-124)

'In order to better understand and appreciate Alexis Wright's publishing history, it is important to first place it in the context of the publishing history of Australian Aboriginal literature. Only then can one properly situate it in the larger context of Australian literature. Finally, for full effect, Wright's publishing history should be placed in the context of the international literary marketplace.' (Introduction)

Last amended 15 Dec 2022 12:23:28
Subjects:
  • Tennant Creek, Mataranka - Tennant Creek area, Central Northern Territory, Northern Territory,
  • 1990s
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