"Well! Why not?" : Magic realism and narrative sovereignty in Alexis Wright's Carpentaria

This article explores anew how the category of magic realism might be relevant to the study of Alexis Wright's Carpentaria. It begins by going back to what Wright and other contemporary Aboriginal artists have defined as "Aboriginal realism," thought of as a mode of resistance to the policy of erasure of Aboriginal civilization, before examining various ways in which magical realism has been defined. It is clear that an overly restrictive view of literature, as a simple expression either of cultural specificity and political protest or of the trauma of colonial violence, would not do justice to Wright's creative inventiveness. This study will therefore re-evaluate the conceptual tension at the heart of magic realism, which seems apt to illuminate the extraordinary richness and complexity of the forces that open up a remarkable space of freedom in a bleak social, cultural and environmental landscape.