The Wheeler Centre

With her latest novel, Go, Went, Gone, German author Jenny Erpenbeck turns her attention to one of the great moral challenges facing the European continent this century – mass human displacement and the refugee crisis. As part of our Mayhem series, Erpenbeck joins Melinda Harvey to discuss her life and work – and the dimensions of history.

Melinda Harvey and Jenny Erpenbeck at the Athenaeum Theatre — Photo: Sophie Quick

‘I do believe that East German authors have an experiential advantage from having lived through a period of such radical change,' Jenny Erpenbeck has said. 'I grew up constantly being reminded that I lived on the poorer side of Germany ... You can’t forget what it felt like to be on the other side of history.'

Born, bred and still based in Berlin, Jenny Erpenbeck is among Germany's most exciting and innovative voices. She's a writer of short and startling novels– often concerned with the profound upheavals of Europe's dark 20th Century – and she’s well known for her daring experiments with form.

In her acclaimed sixth novel, The End of Days, the main character dies four times, living out several different destinies, each uniquely shaped by historical events in Germany, Austria and Russia. With her latest novel, Go, Went, Gone, Erpenbeck turns her attention to one of the great moral challenges facing the European continent this century – mass human displacement and the refugee crisis.

As part of our Mayhem series, Erpenbeck joins Melinda Harvey to discuss her life and work – and the dimensions of history.

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Paula Saunders's debut novel, The Distance Home, squares up to the big existential questions – how are we shaped by our parents, our culture and our place in history and geography? – and searches for answers with compassion, sensitivity and insight. As part of our Mayhem series, she joins Michael Williams to talk American dreams and American dysfunction.

Michael Williams and Paula Saunders at the Wheeler Centre

Paula Saunders has described her debut novel, The Distance Home, as a 'completely American story.' Especially, she says, because 'it's a story of division – of the haves and have-nots, the accepted and rejected.'

'Children really do have insight … they have the feeling of what's fair and what's not fair, and how things might play out – and especially what the hurt might be that can be carried forward from an event.'

The Distance Home is a novel of the Midwest – a tale of ambition, aggression and family faultlines – and it was one of the strongest US debuts of 2018. Praised by the likes of Jennifer Egan and Michael Cunningham, and positively reviewed in the New York Times, it's a family epic that explores a pervasive and destructive obsession with success and failure. The book draws on Saunders's own early life in rural South Dakota and her experiences as a gifted ballet dancer. It tells the story of young sibling dancers in Rapid City in the 1960s and their efforts to move beyond the sometimes corrosive influence of their parents.

Saunders's novel squares up to the big existential questions – how are we shaped by our parents, our culture and our place in history and geography? – and searches for answers with compassion, sensitivity and insight.

As part of our Mayhem series, she joins Michael Williams to talk American dreams and American dysfunction.

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At the Melbourne International Film Festival, Sonic Youth member Thurston Moore joins Jacinta Parsons to discuss his career in music and writing, as well as his latest foray into the world of cinema.

Jacinta Parsons and Thurston Moore at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre — Photo: Renee Coster

'For me the experimentation in Sonic Youth wasn’t so much the tunings, or the implementations of the guitars, or the noise, or the feedback. It was mostly about structure.'

Thurston Moore may be one of the most innovative, influential electric guitarists living today. With Sonic Youth, Moore and his bandmates connected America’s thriving experimental underground with the realm of punk, grunge and alternative rock – forging an unmistakable sound with their detuned, often dissonant and always loud guitars.

Within the band, and outside of it, Moore has kept a relentless schedule of performance, collaboration, recording and writing. A staple of New York City’s experimental art and music scenes, he’s worked with the likes of Yoko Ono, Merce Cunningham, Cecil Taylor, Rhys Chatham, Lydia Lunch, John Zorn, Beck, Takehisa Kosugi, Gus Van Sant, Glenn Branca and Bernie Sanders (yes – you read that correctly). Heavily influenced by the Beat poets, he’s edited music and literary fanzines, and published his own work through various imprints. He’s the founder and senior editor of Ecstatic Peace Library – who publish art books and records – as well as of the poetry imprint Flowers & Cream Press. He’s on faculty at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.

Now based in London, Moore returned to Melbourne for MIFF – performing new scores to four short films by pivotal mid-century Ukrainian-American filmmaker Maya Deren. In conversation with Jacinta Parsons, he discusses his career in music and writing, and his latest foray into the world of cinema.

MIFF Talks presented by the Melbourne International Film Festival.

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Bastian Obermayer, a reporter at Süddeutsche Zeitung who received the first batch of documents that sparked the Panama Papers investigation, talks secret sources and stashpiles of the rich and famous with host Nassim Khadem and Sydney journalist Neil Chenoweth.

Nassim Khadem, Bastian Obermayer and Neil Chenoweth at the Wheeler Centre

The Panama Papers, which made headlines across the world in 2016, represent the biggest data leak in the history of journalism.

The 11.5 million documents, leaked from a Panamanian law firm by an anonymous source, revealed secret information about shell companies and offshore tax havens and the details of the individuals who exploit them – including many heads of state and international celebrities. The scale of the investigation was monumental, involving 370 journalists from 76 countries and sparking protests, police raids and government inquiries across the world.

Bastian Obermayer was the man who received the first batch of documents that sparked this unprecedented investigation. He's a reporter at Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich, started the worldwide Panama Papers investigation with his colleague Frederik Obermaier and coordinated the team with the ICIJ.

For this conversation, he’s joined by Sydneyjournalist Neil Chenoweth, who has published outstanding work on the Australian Panama documents for the Australian Financial Review. The pair talk secret sources and stashpiles of the rich and famous with host Nassim Khadem.

Presented in partnership with the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne.

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With same-sex marriage now legal in Australia, Adolfo Aranjuez, Peter Waples-Crowe and Jax Jacki Brown discuss the most pressing issues currently facing Australia’s diverse queer population, and how well they are being represented.

YA author Dhonielle Clayton joins host Melissa Keil to talk about her writing, as well as the importance of Own Voices stories, and some of the problems with traditional publishing models.