Maxine Beneba Clarke

Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent, whose work includes fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry.

She is the author of over fourteen books for children and adults, notably a short story collection entitled Foreign Soil (2014), and her 2016 memoir The Hate Race, which she adapted for a stage production debuting in February 2024.

Her poetry collections include Carrying the World (2016), How Decent Folk Behave (2021), and It's the Sound of the Thing: 100 New Poems for Young People (2023).

[1] Her mother was an actress of Guyanese heritage and her father an academic of Jamaican descent, who migrated to Australia from England in 1976.

[2][3] She has said: "Cousins, aunts, and uncles of mine have settled all over the world: including in Germany, America, Switzerland, Australia, England, and Barbados.