Adelaide Writers' Week

One of Australia’s greatest writers and seer of our times, Booker Prize-winner Richard Flanagan’s The Living Sea of Waking Dreams describes the end of a family and the end of the world. Documenting the slow death of a matriarch in a Hobart hospital, and the tumult it causes amongst her children, this achingly sad but still hopeful novel deploys magical realism, black humour and Richard’s masterfully poetic prose to explore the way humanity loves, neglects and destroys itself and the beautiful world it inhabits.

Chaired by Chris Flynn

The world shifted slowly, then so fast, while they watched but didn’t see.

In Kate Mildenhall’s compulsive The Mother Fault, Mim’s comfortable, micro-chipped life in suburban Melbourne and her assumptions about the neutrality of the omniscient Department are upended when her husband Ben goes missing while working in Indonesia.   Set in a near future and very recognisable Australia,  The Mother Fault is at once a literary thriller, a family drama and a riveting exploration of the consequences of a passive population and the costs – and rewards – of fighting back.

Chaired by Cath Kenneally

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s The Mountains Sing is the epic, multigenerational tale of the Tran family, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Spanning the French colonial period to the present day, we follow the lives of matriarch Diệu Lan and her granddaughter Huong. Diệu Lan tells Huong of Vietnam’s taboo on discussing “the wrongdoing of those in power, for they give themselves the right to rewrite history.” With luminous prose and a compelling immersive story, The Mountains Sing breaks that silence.

Chaired by Caroline Baum

Distinguished historian Jenny Hocking fought for over a decade for access to correspondence between Governor General John Kerr and Buckingham Palace about the sacking of Gough Whitlam. Classified by the Palace as “personal correspondence”, Jenny finally secured their release in June 2020 following a landmark High Court judgment that decreed they were Commonwealth records. In her new book, The Palace Letters, Jenny discusses the implications of the Letters and their release for transparency and accountability in our democratic system, and for Australian democracy itself.

Chaired by Mark McKenna

In her book, The Music Advantage: How Learning Music Helps Your Child’s Brain and Wellbeing, Dr Anita Collins outlines the remarkable and surprising benefits that playing – or even just appreciating – music offers children. An expert in cognitive development and passionate music educator, Anita visited classrooms and leading music and neurological research labs around the world to investigate the extraordinary impact music can have on the development of young brains. The Music Advantage is the impressive result.\

Chaired by Hannah Critchlow

In Karen Wyld’s Where the Fruit Falls, Brigid sets off on an epic journey with her twin babies, one white and one black, searching for lost love. Nardi Simpson’s Song of the Crocodile introduces us to the Billymil family, living with its community on the fringes of Darnmoor, “the Gateway to Happiness”. Both novels are award winning, immersive stories of family, Country and history that powerfully weave rich narratives and magical realism with the enduring tragic legacy of colonialism.

Chaired by Natalie Harkin

From the award winning author of the celebrated East West Street comes the real life thriller The Ratline, a mesmerising biography of a devoted husband, father and war criminal. The story of the life and mysterious death of Nazi leader turned fugitive Otto von Wächter, the richly detailed and beautifully crafted The Ratline draws on the family archives of Otto’s son and Philippe’s friend Horst to explore humanity’s capacity for love and evil, and ask if one can redeem the other.

Chaired by Rick Sarre

The Murray-Darling Basin is dying. Despite its catastrophic plight, and the devastating findings of the South Australian Royal Commission, policy is corrupted, neglected or ignored. Richard Beasley draws on his experience as Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission in Dead in the Water, a book that is simultaneously hilarious and deadly serious, and very, very angry. Margaret Simons’ celebrated Quarterly Essay, Cry Me A River (QE77), is both a portrait and explanation of our current predicament. Grant Rigney is the Director of the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations.

Chaired by Rick Sarre

As the Lockdowns of 2020 began, Laura Jean McKay’s story of a world collapsing in the midst of a viral epidemic, The Animals in That Country, seized the popular imagination: a hallucinogenic tale of Zoo Flu with wild symptoms that enable inter-species communication. Emily St. John Mandel’s break-out novel Station Eleven is a gripping, eerie story of civilisation’s collapse in the wake of a flu that wipes out 99% of the world’s population. It sold nearly two million copies worldwide. Both are prescient, terrifying and ultimately hopeful.

Chaired by Sophie Cunningham

With over half a million Australians joining Kevin Rudd’s call for a Royal Commission into News Corp and the concentration of media power in this country, Australians are increasingly turning to other, more independent outlets for their news. Editor-in-Chief of veteran online newsletter Crikey! Peter Fray, independent journalist and media analyst Margaret Simons and founder of michaelwest.com.au, business writer Michael West discuss the rise of independent media and what we gain – and lose – from the increased proliferation of new media.

Chaired by David Washington