Final Draft - Great Conversations

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

In today's episode we remember Peter Corris.

Peter Corris wrote more than ninety books in his lifetime, including forty two novels in the Cliff Hardy series, which has seen him acknowledged as the Godfather of Australian Crime fiction. In this conversation from 2015 Andrew and Peter discuss the creation of Cliff Hardy, the writing game and Andrew's shameful lack of crime fiction reading.

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features Angela Meyer discussing her debut novel A Superior Spectre.

Jeff has travelled to Scotland to die. Isolated and alone, he possesses the technology to throw his mind back through time. Leonora faces the daunting task of moving to Edinburgh, the city where her mother died. As she moves south she discovers the strange sights of the city are nothing compared to the images of the future visited in visions as if from another mind.

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features Heather Morris discussing her novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

In 1942 Lale Sokolov was on the first transport from Slovakia to Auschwitz-Birkenau; the most notorious of the Nazi death camps. In the position of Tatowierer Lale is able to use his relative privilege to smuggle food to starving prisoners and provide some modicum of solace in their lives. When he meets Gita he finds his own life transformed and vows to survive and live a life with the woman he loves. Based on a true story, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is an incredible evocation of the strength of the human spirit.

In this special bonus episode of Great Conversations Andrew speaks with Dr Omid Tofighian, discussing Behrouz Boochani's No Friend But the Mountains.

No Friend But the Mountains takes the reader into Australia’s offshore detention facility where Behrouz Boochani has been imprisoned for five years.

Omid is an academic at the University of Sydney and the University of Cairo. He worked as a friend, collaborator and translator for Behrouz on No Friend But the Mountains and provides valuable insights into Behrouz’ experience and his philosophy in No Friend But the Mountains.

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features Behrouz Boochani discussing his book No Friend But The Mountains.

Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish novelist, philosopher and filmmaker. He has been imprisoned on Manus Island for five years and in that time has written journalism and produced an internationally acclaimed film Chauka, Please Tell us the Time. No Friend but the Mountains imagines his journey, his life and experiences on Manus, detailing the oppression and torture of a life imprisoned.

In this special bonus episode of Great Conversations Andrew and Tess Connery from 2ser's Breakfast program discuss Behrouz Boochani's No Friend But the Mountains.

No Friend But the Mountains takes the reader into Australia’s offshore detention facility. Behrouz has been imprisoned on Manus for five years and in that time has written journalism on his imprisonment and produced an internationally acclaimed film Chauka, Please Tell us the Time. No Friend but the Mountains imagines his life and experiences on Manus, detailing the oppression and torture of life imprisoned without recourse or release.

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features Gregory discussing his new novel A Sand Archive.

A Sand Archive wings its way between Paris and Geelong as we follow FB Herschell, a young engineer who must solve the problem of stabilising sand dunes to ensure the safe construction of The Great Ocean Road. Landing in Paris on the cusp of the 1968 student protests, Herschell discovers his project is intimately connected to the ways in which we grow and shape the world and we understand our place within nature.

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features Tessa Lunney discussing her debut novel April in Paris, 1921.

In April in Paris, 1921 we meet Katherine King Button returning to London, having departed Europe at the end of the war. Katherine is Kiki to all those who know her from those days, and London is just a pit stop on her way to Paris and the freedom that only that city can offer.

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features Maryam Azam discussing her poetry collection The Hijab Files.

The Hijab Files emerged as a response to the paucity of representations of hijabi women in Australian literature. The collection engages with modern assumptions about women who wear the hijab and expands these limited, often racist imaginings to encompass the variety and fashion of the hijab.

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features Sally Piper discussing her novel The Geography of Friendship.

When Samantha, Lisa and Nicole embark on a five day hike they could not predict that they would descend into a harrowing torment at the hands of a faceless man. More than twenty years later they return to the trail and attempt to resolve themselves to the past they have been trying to escape.