Adelaide Writers Week 2020 Program

I am thrilled to be on the Adelaide Writers Week program as an interviewer for the third consecutive year. I’ve fallen in love with this festival since first attending in 2018 and look forward to participating both as a chair and as an audience member.

First up, I will be interviewing award-winning Wiradjuri author Tara June Winch about her latest novel, The Yield. I am currently reading my way through Tara’s breathtaking novels in preparation. Details:

Sat 29 Feb, 9.30AM, West Stage
The Yield
As Albert Gondiwindi’s family gathers to mourn his death, his returning granddaughter August is forced to confront past trauma, both personal and colonial. But she also discovers her Poppy’s last big project, the chronicling of his life through the language of his people, the Wiradjuri. Tara June Winch burst on the literary scene with her dazzling debut, Swallow the Air. Her stunning new novel, The Yield – sad and angry, wise and uplifting – documents both the power of Indigenous language, and, uniquely, the language itself.

My second session is with Miriam Sved, whose novel A Universe of Sufficient Size is set in Prague in 1938 and Sydney in 2007, with a couple of forays to Brooklyn in the 1950s. I loved this book about friendship, loyalty and sacrifice, and never thought I’d be so moved by a story with complex mathematics at its heart. I’m really looking forward to interviewing Miriam about it. Details:

Sun 1 Mar, 9.30AM, West Stage
A Universe of Sufficient Size
Alternating between contemporary Australia and a vividly evoked pre-war Europe, Miriam Sved’s interwoven narratives are linked by the compelling and brilliant Eszter. A young Jewish mathematician in 1938 Hungary and the irascible newly widowed mother of Illy in 2007 Sydney, Eszter is based on the author’s real life grandmother. The remarkable A Universe of Sufficient Size is simultaneously a generational saga, a study of trauma, an homage to familial love and a celebration of the mysterious beauty of mathematics.

If you’re heading to Adelaide Writers Week, feel free to leave a comment about what sessions you’re looking forward to.