At Home with Maxine Beneba Clarke

Maxine Beneba Clarke explores her gorgeous picture book, When We Say Black Lives Matter, in this 2020 interview.

Maxine is a widely published Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent. Maxine's short fiction, non-fiction and poetry have been published in numerous publications including Overland, The Age, Meanjin, The Saturday Paper and The Big Issue.

Her critically acclaimed short fiction collection Foreign Soil won the ABIA for Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2015 and the 2015 Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Matt Richell Award for New Writing at the 2015 ABIAs and the 2015 Stella Prize. She was also named as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists for 2015.

Maxine has published three poetry collections including Carrying the World, which won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry 2017 and was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award.

The Hate Race, a memoir about growing up black in Australia won the NSW Premier's Literary Award Multicultural NSW Award 2017 and was shortlisted for an ABIA, an Indie Award, the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and Stella Prize.

In 2019 Maxine co-edited the anthology Growing Up African in Australia.

The Patchwork Bike, Maxine's first picture book with Van T. Rudd was a CBCA Honour Book for 2017. She has since written three more picture books - Wide Big World (2018), Fashionista (2019) and When We Say Black Lives Matter (2020).

Maxine has appeared on The Garret twice before - the first interview was a live event about Growing Up African in Australia, and the second was a close reading of her memoir The Hate Race.

About The Garret

Read the transcript of this interview at thegarretpodcast.com. The interview was recorded by Zoom, and we can't wait to start recording in person again soon.

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