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Sydney Writers" Festival

Sydney Writers" Festival

Australia"s largest celebration of literature, stories and ideas. Bringing together the world"s best authors, leading public intellectuals, scientists, journalists and more. Subscribe to our channel for new releases.

society & culture books

All Episodes

50:44

The Presence of the Past

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/10/03

As conflict plays out across an unnamed region, the protagonist in Parramatta Laureate of Literature Yumna Kassab’s Politica imagines how she will later narrate her experiences: “We hadn’t spoken for years but then the war broke out...” Sharing difficult stories is also at the heart of Miles Franklin Award winner Shankari Chandran’s Safe Haven, which follows a refugee threatened with deportation when she speaks out for other detainees. Sit down with Yumna and Shankari as they discuss their poignant

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58:01

Lauren Groff: The Vaster Wilds

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/10/01

After smash-hit Fates and Furies, the modern-day marriage story that was Barack Obama’s book of the year in 2015, Lauren Groff’s novels have looked to the past to understand the present. Her latest historical novel, The Vaster Wilds, is set on the edge of the New World at an unnamed British settlement in the Americas. Fleeing violence, disease and starvation, a servant girl enters the wilderness alone. This spirited survivalist story has been critically acclaimed as “exhilarating” (The Guardian),

en-AU

57:28

Richard Flanagan: Question 7

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/09/24

Join Richard Flanagan as he discusses this hypnotic, genre-defying new book which entwines memoir, biography, autofiction and history through a daisy chain of stories both intimate and collective. Opening with his father as a prisoner of war, the book leads readers through a literary love affair into nuclear physics of the 1930s and 40s and finally towards a young Richard fighting for his life in Tasmanian river rapids in a rumination on life’s choices and their intergenerational chain reactions

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53:47

Survival, Sustenance and Stories

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/09/19

Social change is driven by conversation, in sharing ideas, and translating those ideas for audiences who don’t agree or understand what is at stake. For many First Nations writers and journalists, this has been a huge priority over the last year, in particular, and one that comes with a cost. In a conversation with legendary truth-tellers, find out what sustains them to keep on going in the face of profound challenges. With Larissa Behrendt, Tony Birch, Narelda Jacobs and Amy Thunig. This episode

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55:25

A.C. Grayling: The Meaning of Life in a Technological...

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/09/17

The quest for a life worth living has been the business of philosophers for millennia. How can we pursue answers to life’s big questions in a world that feels increasingly dangerous and unstable thanks to big tech and AI? Unpack the ‘how’ in this unmissable episode from the pre-eminent philosopher A.C. Grayling. This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.  Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on

en-AU

51:28

Kate Manne: Fighting Fatphobia

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/09/12

Anti-fatness is a system of oppression, argues Kate Manne, afflicting vulnerable bodies in intersectional ways. Building on her incisive studies of misogyny and male privilege, the Melbourne-born feminist philosopher’s latest book, Unshrinking: How to Fight Fatphobia, unpicks the dangerous virtues associated with dieting and deprivation, using a blend of first-hand stories and trenchant analysis. Praised by US writer Roxane Gay as “required reading”, this timely intervention calls for a radical

en-AU

50:43

Abdulrazak Gurnah: Afterlives

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/09/09

At 18, Abdulrazak Gurnah arrived in England as a refugee from the Zanzibar Revolution. Receiving the Nobel Prize more than 50 years later, he reflected that the “prolonged period of poverty and alienation” he experienced made him a writer. From the contemporary immigrant experience in his debut, Memory of Departure, to colonial wartime conscription in Booker Prize shortlisted Paradise, Abdulrazak’s unflinching yet humane oeuvre interrogates the legacies of empire, centring that which is often too

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49:36

Katy Hessel: The Story of Art Without Men

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/09/05

How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? And what is the Baroque anyway? Enter art historian and curator Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men, a response to E.H. Gombrich’s classic chronicle, The Story of Art, first published in 1950, which was recently updated to include... one woman. Katy’s revisionist history builds on her popular podcast and Instagram account, The Great Women Artists, where her fresh approach has garnered fans worldwide and earned her a spot on the Forbes

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60:21

Michael Connelly’s Life of Crime

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/09/03

Crime fiction king Michael Connelly discusses the highlights of his illustrious career and the characters who have populated the pages of his cult classic novels. The bestselling author of 39 books, selling over 80 million copies worldwide, talks with The Monthly’s Michael Williams about the art of crime writing, seeing his work reach the screen, including the Netflix smash-hit The Lincoln Lawyer and his newest book in the series, Resurrection Walk. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024

en-AU

53:08

Coffee and Headlines with Read This

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/08/29

How do you support writers if the market for their books is being steadily destroyed? As bookshops close their doors in record numbers and writers see their income steadily eroding, its time for government to take action. With a simple fix – to stop book discounting for a time after first publication, as many EU countries do. Both writers and independent booksellers would benefit. Ray Bonner, Richard Flanagan, Olivia Lanchester and Michael Robotham join host of Read This Michael Williams

en-AU

58:37

Jake Adelstein: Tokyo Noir

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/08/22

Jake Adelstein has spent decades reporting on Japanese organised crime and is the only American journalist to be admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club. These unique experiences informed his memoir, Tokyo Vice, which was adapted into an HBO Max series starring Ansel Elgort, the second season of which premiered in February. Jake returns to Japan’s seedy underworld with this hotly anticipated follow-up Tokyo Noir, which is equal parts history lesson, true crime exposé and darkly

en-AU

47:12

Samantha Shannon on The Roots of Chaos series

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/08/20

At 21, Samantha Shannon was hailed as the next big thing in genre fiction for her bestselling dystopian debut, The Bone Season. Samantha’s latest queer fantasy series, The Roots of Chaos, is a feat of feminist worldbuilding, reimagining the legend of Saint George and the Dragon to create a universe where princesses save themselves. Following smash-hit The Priory of the Orange Tree, the prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, is an engrossing saga about a world on the brink of war with dragons – and the

en-AU

49:19

Suzie Miller: Prima Facie

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/08/15

[Content warning: Sexual assault] Suzie Miller’s disturbingly prescient play, Prima Facie, dramatises the price sexual assault victims pay for speaking out. This blistering one-woman show wowed audiences on Broadway and the West End, winning Suzie an Olivier Award and Killing Eve favourite Jodie Comer a Tony for her performance as the brilliant young barrister who, one sickening night, finds herself thrust into the flawed justice system. Put the courts on trial with Suzie and writer and podcaster

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48:19

Nick Bryant: America's Unending Conflict With Itself

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/08/13

What is driving American decline, and what does it mean for the world? Long-time foreign correspondent Nick Bryant’s most recent posting took him to New York City to cover the Trump years. In his compelling analysis of American history and politics, Nick finds the roots of current polarisation and conflict in its history. If the American experiment is failing, what does this mean in for a world order with American power and influence at its heart? Pressing global issues such as current conflicts in

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54:36

Celeste Ng: Our Missing Hearts

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/08/08

Banning books, waving flags and persecuting racial minorities. Sound familiar? After New York Times–bestselling novel Little Fires Everywhere – which was adapted into a popular miniseries starring Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon – comes a similarly moving tale about the unbreakable bond between a mother and son. Celeste Ng’s third novel, Our Missing Hearts, is set in a marginally more dystopian version of Trump’s America and follows Bird, a young boy searching for his politically dissident

en-AU

65:20

Creativity, Joy, Grace

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/08/06

Find sanctuary in this uplifting celebration of creativity, chaired by Michaela Kalowski. Award-winning journalist Julia Baird follows her international bestseller, Phosphorescence, with Bright Shining, a stunning and insightful call for grace in a world which has forgotten its importance. Bestselling author Holly Ringland, whose debut novel, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, was published in 30 countries and adapted into an Amazon miniseries starring Sigourney Weaver, invites readers into her

en-AU

48:55

Charlotte Wood: Stone Yard Devotional

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/08/01

Can a person truly be good? What is forgiveness? Is losing hope a moral failure? And is the business of grief ever really finished? These questions pervade Charlotte Wood’s latest novel, Stone Yard Devotional, which is set on the Monaro plains where the much-loved author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend grew up. It follows a woman who abandons city life to return to the place of her childhood, holing up in a cloistered religious community where she confronts her past. Hear Charlotte and

en-AU

59:44

Queer Love and Longing

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/07/30

Love is indeed a many splendoured thing in the work of K Patrick and Christos Tsiolkas, who know firsthand the pleasures of writing queer love stories. Hosted by Madeleine Gray, this beautiful conversation brings together two authors to discuss their sensual new novels. K’s Mrs S pulses with lust and longing at an elite boarding school, while Christos’ critically acclaimed The In-Between follows a fledgling relationship between two middle-aged men. Swoon with K and Christos in this heartfelt

en-AU

51:09

The Secret Lives of Women

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/07/25

“We are invisible”, writes Balli Kaur Jaswal in Now You See Us. “We clean your houses, we look after your children, we know your secrets.” The Singaporean-Australian writer is joined by Dominican-American novelist Elizabeth Acevedo (Family Lore) and Arab-Australian author Sara M Saleh (Songs for the Dead and the Living and The Flirtation of Girls) whose latest works portray the private lives and subterranean desires of women who are too often silenced. In conversation with ABC RN’s Kate Evans, these

en-AU

59:44

Paul Lynch: Prophet Song

Sydney Writers" Festival ·

2024/07/23

In his Booker Prize acceptance speech, Paul Lynch admitted his fifth novel, Prophet Song, had been difficult to write. “The rational part of me believed I was dooming my career,” he said, “though I had to write the book anyway. We do not have a choice in such matters”. Set in Ireland’s near future, Prophet Song depicts a collapsing society in the grip of an increasingly tyrannical government. The Booker Prize judges described it as a novel “to remind us of all that is worth saving”. Sit down with

en-AU

190 results

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