As politicians and analysts attempt to manoeuvre with the global superpower, these writers reflect on how the 20th century got the nation where it is today.

Bombard the Headquarters!: The Cultural Revolution in China is Linda Jaivin’s account of the ideological quarrels and personalities that underpinned the violent beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Louisa Lim’s Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong and Edward Wong’s At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China mix national history with personal archives to paint detailed portraits of Hong Kong and China, respectively.

Hear Linda, Louisa and Edward in conversation with Peter Hartcher as they discuss the crucial history that made China what it is today.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

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Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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Commonwealth Writers’ Prize winner Catherine Chidgey’s 9th novel, The Book of Guilt, sparked an international bidding war.

With undertones of Shirley Jackson and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, the story’s teenage triplets discover – when the government decides to shut down their home – that some lives are valued more than others in this dystopian 1970s England.

Join Catherine, in conversation with Beejay Silcox, to hear about her deeply unnerving new novel.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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This trio of Australian literary talents make writing a family affair.

The Moriarty sisters, Jaclyn (the Kingdom and Empires series), Liane (Here One Moment, Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers) and Nicola (Every Last Suspect and The Fifth Letter) have decades of writing experience between them. Their achievements include international bestsellers, film and television adaptations and prestigious awards.

In this panel discussion, they reflect on their career beginnings – including how they used to earn pocket money for writing stories – their different publishing paths and their many successes over the years. Hosted by writer and broadcaster Sarah Macdonald.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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Every family has a secret but not every family has a memoirist to reveal it to the world.

Writer and former restaurant reviewer Candice Chung’s memoir Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You is a tender account of reconnecting with her family and breaking down the barriers of cultural taboos. Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars is award-winning writer Peter Godwin’s exploration of his changing relationship with his mother, his sister and his ex-wife and the winding histories that got them where they are now. Journalist Michael Visontay in Noble Fragments unravels a rare-book mystery linked by a legal document to his family’s history.

Hear Candice, Peter and Michael in conversation with Georgina Godwin reveal the tender underbellies of their family memoirs.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:

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Space, in all its awe-inspiring, mind-blowing expanse, is still the final frontier.

Its greatness and grandness force us to reflect on our humanity, our existence and our place within the universe.

In Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize–winning Orbital, six astronauts contemplate the Earth and its inhabitants from the International Space Station. Ceridwen Dovey’s newest short story collection, Only the Astronauts, imagines the perspectives of non-humans in space, from an abandoned mannequin orbiting the Sun to a team of ‘tamponauts’ journeying to Mars.

Consider the limits of humanity in the universe with Samantha and Ceridwen in conversation with host Ashley Hay.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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After a lifetime of bringing Shakespeare’s female characters to life on stage, multi-award-winning British actor Harriet Walter lends them her pen in She Speaks!. 

Shining a new light on classic stories, Harriet writes between the lines of some of Shakespeare’s most compelling characters – from servants to sovereigns. She imagines what Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, Juliet’s nurse, Cleopatra and others could have said without the constraints of the Bard’s perspective and reveals what might be their true desires

Join Harriet in conversation with Ailsa Piper as they delve into the unexplored depths of the English literary canon. 

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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[Content warning: sexual assault]

Feminism has a checkered past, but what can we expect from feminist ideas these days? 

CEO of independent news commentary platform Cheek Media Co. Hannah Ferguson (Taboo: Conversations we never had about sex, body image, work and relationships), Stella Prize winner and investigative journalist Jess Hill (See What You Made Me Do, Quarterly Essay 97, Losing It) and human rights lawyer and Fulbright Scholar Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts (Long Yarn Short) discuss whether feminism can find solutions to some of our current crises.

Join them as they reckon with what feminism has to offer and predict future solutions to complex social problems in this panel discussion with host Sisonke Msimang. 

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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Rumaan Alam’s Entitlement probes complex racial and social dynamics much like his New York Times bestselling Leave the World Behind, which was adapted into a Netflix film starring Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali.

In his new novel, Rumaan introduces themes of wealth and philanthropic aspirations when an ageing white billionaire hires an ambitious young African American woman to help him dispose of his money – through worthy causes, of course.

Join Rumaan in conversation with Sisonke Msimang as they examine the promise (or the lie) of the American Dream in the 21st century. 

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. 

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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International bestselling novelists Liane Moriarty and David Nicholls share the experience of seeing their powerful local stories turn into bingeable television series and films.

Liane’s Big Little Lies was the first book by an Australian to debut at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list and, since then, all 10 of her novels have been optioned for screen adaptation.

David executive produced the Netflix adaptation of his bestselling novel One Day and has written screen adaptations for Far from the Madding Crowd and Great Expectations.

Join Liane and David as they talk about their new books, Here One Moment and You Are Here, and being sensations across page and screen. With host Claire Nichols (ABC Radio National’sThe Book Show).

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. 

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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Wars, coups and economic and climate crises: each new headline can make it feel like the world is suddenly falling apart.

But behind many dramatic world events are long-term historical patterns and the rise (and sometimes the fall) of tyrannical and authoritarian rulers. From the Arab Spring to the fall of dictators like Syria’s Assad, find out more about telling these stories from the inside with award-winning foreign correspondent Peter Greste (The Correspondent) and political scientist and author Marcel Dirsus (How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive). In conversation with Avani Dias.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.