The plot is thickening in the story of Yarraville author Maxine Beneba Clarke’s literary life.
The winner of the 2013 Victorian Premier’s Award for an unpublished manuscript, Clarke has been on a rollercoaster ride since a publisher picked up her first collection of short stories, Foreign Soil.
Clarke says several publishers have shown interest in her since the award, but she decided to sign a three-book deal with Hachette Australia, which will also publish her memoir and a novel in coming years.
“It has been fantastic. This morning we visited six bookshops, it was amazing to go into Dymocks and see my book on their shelves.”
Clarke, born in Australia of Afro-Caribbean descent, is being heralded as a major new voice in the Australian literary landscape.
Used to immediate audience feedback, the slam poetry champion is less familiar with the waiting game of publishing.
But glowing reviews and endorsement from the likes of fellow western suburbs author Alice Pung mean she has little to fear.
“The reviews have been really positive to date,” Clarke says.
Her collection weaves together stories set in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre, the rebel squats of 1960s Brixton, a small town in Mississippi, and rural Jamaica.
Living in the western suburbs has also shaped the work, with the opening story set in a dilapidated block of flats overhanging
the rattling Footscray train lines, where a young black mother is working on a collection of stories.
“I feel there is a real grounding in the local area, that was very important to me,’’ she says. “I haven’t read many stories set in the west, it would be great to inspire other writers to look for the stories in this area.”
Clarke says readers will find running themes through the collection that align with many of her own fears about where Australia is heading.
“My intention was each story would stand alone, but you would look back and get this overarching message,” she says. “I love that it’s become a conversation starter, I feel really happy it’s put a lot of issues on the agenda.”
Clarke will appear at Footscray Community Arts Centre at 6pm on Thursday, May 29 for the launch of an anthology as part of the Emerging Writers Festival’s Words Out West. For more details, visit footscrayarts.com.
