Adelaide Writers' Week

Twilight Talks | Authorial Voice

Hosted by Benjamin Law.

Join Australia’s favourite raconteur Ben Law for our rescheduled Twilight Talks, now on the Plane Tree Stage at 5pm. Living Gender brings together a dynamic panel to examine gender in contemporary Australia, featuring Yves Rees, whose memoir All About Yves: Notes from a Transition is a beautiful account of re-becoming and trans identity, Omar Sakr, a lauded Queer poet and novelist, whose thrilling writing examines notions of belonging when one’s identity is at odds with one’s family and faith, and Brandon Jack, a former AFL player who suffered greatly when he tried to conform to sport’s rigid notions of masculinity, and was liberated when he reimagined what it meant to be a man.

Chaired by Linda Jaivin.

David Brophy’s China Panic: Australia’s Alternative to Panic and Pandering is a nuanced and insightful analysis of the deterioration of Australia’s relationship with China. As fearmongering about China builds in the lead up to the Federal election, David Brophy and Jason Yat-Sen Li discuss the changing state of our region and the implications for our foreign policy, including the weakening American hegemony in Asia and the worsening levels of state repression in China.

Chaired by Benjamin Law.

In his detailed account of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong, long-term Hong Kong resident, journalist and lawyer Antony Dapiran reports on the 2019 anti-government protests from the inside. “It is a battle for Hong Kong’s very soul,” he writes. Providing important context dating back to the British Handover in 1997, Antony contemplates both the big and small events that led to the tipping point of 2019, and invites the question, what will happen next?

In conversation with Melissa Roberts.

When correspondents Bill Birtles and Michael Smith abruptly left China in September 2020 after late night visits from China’s notorious secret police, it marked the first time in decades that Australia had no journalists on the ground. Bill went on to write The Truth About China: Propaganda, Patriotism and the Search for Truth. He joins Trevor Watson, the co-editor of The Beijing Bureau, a collection of essays from some of Australia’s leading correspondents based in China from 1970 to the near present, and Hong Kong-based China correspondent Sue-Lin Wong, to discuss their experiences and insights, in a conversation led by Melissa Roberts, co-editor of The Beijing Bureau.

Chaired by Jacqueline Lo.

One of Australia’s foremost sinologists distils the sprawling history of China into a pacey, readable account of its origins, impact and influence. Named as one of the top five books on China of 2021, Linda Jaivin’s The Shortest History of China explores everything from China’s philosophical genesis to its contemporary political system. Richly informative and highly entertaining, this compact survey is the perfect introduction to China in all its complexity.

Poetry in Performance. 

Geoff Goodfellow returns to Writers’ Week with a reading of his new verse novella, Blight Street, featuring Geoff and performers Roslyn Oades and Nic Darrigo.

Set in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, Blight Street is written in the language and idiom of the culture it portrays. Harrowing but tender, Blight Street draws on the vital themes that characterise Geoff’s writing: the working class struggle, the tragedy of addiction and the celebration of love.

The reading is followed by a short interview with Geoff, chaired by Rick Sarre.

Chaired by Kerry O'Brien

Richard Flanagan returns to Writers’ Week for a wide-ranging discussion with Kerry O’Brien. Drawing on his journalism of recent years, particularly his now iconic essay The Australian Disease: On the Decline of Love and the Rise of Non-freedom and his recent bestseller on the salmon industry, Toxic, Richard and Kerry discuss the conformity that blights our national life, along with ideas of freedom, leadership, and the roots of inequality. If we are to find hope, Richard says, we must finally take our compass more from ourselves and less from the powerful.

Chaired by Sally Warhaft

NSW Treasurer Matt Keane describes Australian and Biden climate and energy adviser Saul Griffith as having “a brain the size of a planet. He’s a genius”. In The Big Switch, Saul lays out a detailed blueprint for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. While billionaires might plot to escape the planet they’ve trashed via a private rocket to Mars, Saul says, the rest of us will stay and fight for the future. The Big Switch tells us how we can win.

Chaired by Rick Sarre

Two of Australia’s most distinguished thinkers join forces in this unmissable conversation. With combined life experience of more years than it’s polite to mention, Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty’s An Insider’s Plague Year and dazzling polymath Barry Jones’s What Is To Be Done? continue their authors’ lifelong commitment to better the world as they reflect on the pivotal role of science, the failure of our politics, and what we must do to confront the great challenges of our time.

Chaired by Meredith Lake

Little more than 100 years old, Pentecostalism currently has 600 million followers worldwide and is on track to have 1 in 10 people pledging allegiance by 2050. Reporting this revolution from twelve countries – including Australia - Elle Hardy’s Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity is Taking Over the World weaves a timeless tale of miracles, money and power, set in our volatile age of extremes. Equal parts troubling and entertaining, Beyond Belief exposes the Pentecostal agenda: not just saving souls, but transforming societies and controlling politics… and they have the cash and influence to succeed.