Maxine Beneba Clarke is a highly awarded Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent. The Hate Race (2015), her memoir of growing up in Sydney in the 1980s and 1990s, immediately entered the canon of contemporary Australian literature. The Hate Race received 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 The Stella Prize. This interview is a close study of Maxine’s memoir.

Maxine is prolific. Her other works include The Saturday Paper Portraits (2019) and the critically acclaimed short fiction collection Foreign Soil (2015), as well as three picture books - Fashionista (2019), Wide Big World (with Isobel Knowles in 2018) and The Patchwork Bike (with Van T. Rudd in 2016).

Her poetry can be found in The Saturday Paper most weeks, and she has published three poetry collections Carrying the World, Gil Scott Heron Is on Parole and Nothing Here Needs Fixing. Maxine’s short fiction, non-fiction and poetry have also been published in numerous publications including Overland, The Age, Meanjin and The Big Issue.

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