Gifted youngster Lawrence enjoys an idyllic childhood in regional Victoria, where he lives with his widowed mother and young brother at the foot of the Grampians. After taking his first painting class, he dives obsessively into an exhilarating world of light, colour and art, and thrives. But his world is shattered by the arrival of an interloper, and a devastating incident that follows. Sofie Laguna’s extraordinary and compassionate new book, Infinite Splendours, is a luminous and heartbreaking meditation on art, trauma, and innocence lost.

Chaired by Linda Jaivin