The Hate Race

WINNER of the NSW Premier's Literary Award Multicultural NSW Award 2017
Shortlisted for the Nita B Kibble Award 2018
Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction 2017
Shortlisted for the ABIA Biography Book of the Year 2017
Shortlisted for the Indie Award for Non-Fiction 2017
Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2017

'Maxine Beneba Clarke is a powerful and fearless storyteller' Dave Eggers, international bestselling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

Against anything I had ever been told was possible, I was turning white. On the surface of my skin, a miracle was quietly brewing . . .

Suburban Australia. Sweltering heat. Three bedroom blonde-brick. Family of five. Beat-up Ford Falcon. Vegemite on toast. Maxine Beneba Clarke's life is just like all the other Aussie kids on her street. Except for this one, glaring, inescapably obvious thing.

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.

'There is a tendency to talk about a young author such as Clarke as a 'writer to watch' with the expectation that she may, one day, achieve the extraordinary. With The Hate Race, she already has; don't watch, watch out.' Beejay Silcox The Australian

'The Hate Race has a heft to it that is at once steeped in history, and also exquisitely and playfully modern; it is lyrical, sincere and ironic, but above all, it is fierce.' - Books + Publishing

A must listen for Australians

This is a beautifully crafted, moving, honest, heart wrenching book. People who've experienced racism would surely be moved and validated by Clarke's complex, funny, sad and sensitive tale of her own childhood. People who deny racism's impact in Australia will gain immensely by reading this story as it reveals how pervasive it is and how deeply impactful upon identity it can be. I will never forget this book.