Framing the Unutterable: Reading Trauma in Alexis Wright's Short Fiction

We in fact have a saying in our family—Don't tell anybody. So I learnt to imagine the things that were never explained to me—the haunting memories of the impossible and the frightening silence of family members.

—Alexis Wright, "Politics of Writing" (10)

Alexis Wright's literary works are regularly discussed in relation to the ways in which they bring Indigenous perspectives, experiences, and histories to the foreground. Following Carpentaria's Miles Franklin Award win in 2007, Wright claimed that—writing from her own Indigenous "viewpoint"—she tries "to bring out the way" many Indigenous Australians "think as people," to share what she terms "something of our humanity, something of our character, something of our soul" (O'Brien 217). An awareness of the dynamics underpinning Indigenous exposition and cross-cultural exchange are integral to understanding Wright's oeuvre. Yet while close readings of Wright's literary works need be attuned to the "things" that are being expressively shared (modes of storytelling), I propose that such analyses also need to be conscious of the halts, silences, and gaps in her narratives: the unarticulated spaces that may connote trauma. Drawing on Alison Ravenscroft's approach to reading trauma in "Indigenous-signed texts"—a reading technique that focuses on elements of the unknown, or "nodes of silence"—this essay examines some of the ways in which the unspeakable is conveyed in Wright's short fiction and how the manipulation of oral forms contributes to wider processes of cultural regeneration (Ravenscroft, Postcolonial 16).

Wright has, to date, published four stand-alone short fictional works: "The Chinky Apple Tree," "When Devils Call," "After the Storm," and "Be Careful about Playing with the Path of Least Resistance." When discussing Wright's short fiction, however, this essay argues that one cannot overlook the significance of her literary extracts, the fictional fragments, or passages, that have inspired or been taken or adapted from her longer works. Sylvie Kandé, who, along with Marc de Gouvenain, was responsible for translating Wright's French collection of short fiction, Le pacte du serpent arc-en-ciel, claims that "excerpts of Wright's works, like those of any literary masterpiece, can be read as stand-alone stories, and lend themselves to anthologization and close reading" because "just like in Proust's, Faulkner's or Glissant's works, characters and events circulate widely in Wright's narratives" and "what readers know of each of them within the confines of a specific short story is often challenged in another one . . . through a different type of lens" (Hall 4). For instance, Wright's most widely published short story, "The Serpent's Covenant," which introduces readers to her now well-known character Normal Phantom, is featured in three different Australian anthologies and was analyzed by Xavier Pons as a stand-alone short fictional work before it was revealed to be an extract from Wright's novel Carpentaria.¹ Furthermore, this story/extract went on to frame the narratives in her volume of short stories, Le pacte du serpent arc-en-ciel.

Since the success of Carpentaria, Wright's novels have been translated into numerous languages and taught in universities worldwide. Prior to becoming a revered figure in world literature, however, Wright found a receptive market for her work in France, with the independent book publisher Actes Sud. With a marked interest in foreign titles, Actes Sud published a translation of Wright's first novel, Plains of Promise (Les plaines de l'espoir), in 1999. During the following years, while Wright struggled to find a publisher for Carpentaria in Australia (Perlez), Actes Sud published two more of her texts: first a narrative about the traditions and spiritual beliefs of the Waanyi people of North West Australia, entitled Croire en l'incroyable (2000; see Castro-Koshy and Guerre's article in this issue), followed by Le pacte du serpent arc-en-ciel (2002). In regard to the details surrounding the publication of Le pacte du serpent arc-en-ciel, Wright herself states,

Actes Sud were keen to develop a continuing interest in my work with French readers until Carpentaria...