Unlike the Sydney Writers Festival, i need to travel by airplane for about ninety minutes in order to attend the Melbourne Writers Festival. The ten days packed series of literary events finished yesterday. As usual it remains an impossible task to attend all events as all day long simultaneous sessions are taking place in and around the Federation Square. Still, by making careful choices, the result can be overwhelming and stimulus for our brain.
I did miss out the opening keynote address by Bernhard Schlink entitled "Guilt About The Past". The author of "The Reader" - a highly successful book which was recently made into a movie starring Kate Winslet, is well placed to discuss concepts of forgiving, condemning and reconciliation and challenges facing literary representations of the past. I would have loved being part of such a rare and important event of this caliber especially this well respected intellectual is known to be a discreet thinker. His visit in Sydney for a lecture at the City Recital Hall was an examination whether fiction can be dealt with sensitive historical subjects or perhaps create an intense emotion that can be seen as a crucial step of living a truer and more direct experience. I will be watching the movie soon and will for sure revisit the subject in a near future.
When i saw Antony Beevor at the french literary program "La grande Librairie", i was very much impressed by this rigorous and charismatic military historian who has published several books about important historical episodes of the last century. In "D-dAY" it is the battle of Normandy in 1944 that is meticulously depicted despite the fact that the same subject was treated numerous times before. Beevor is a master history teller that not only brings out important aspects of the twentieth century but also makes this task approachable to the general readers. I saw Beevor in Sydney during a talk about the hidden parts of otherwise the most well known day of the Second World War known as D-day.
The Second World War is the most written subject of the last sixty plus years. Both the irishman John Boyne and the Italian Vincenzo Cerami were behind two poignant stories of survival in the most horrific times of the last century. Boyne wrote "The Boy in the stripped pyjamas" about an unlikely friendship between a german kid and a jew kid and the devastating consequences of that bond while Cerami collaborated with Roberto Benigni on the screenplay of "La vita e bella" one of the most heartbreaking movies of recent years.
Young women writers are often invited to share their stories, real or fiction. Nikki Gemmell became an international best selling author in 2004 with "The bride striped bare" originally published anonymously. A book about sex viewed from a female perspective being an ideal candidate for a litterary scandal. Since then, Gemmell pursues her writing career with other fictions including her latest novel called "The book of rapture". This is another provocative tale about trust in families. A somehow grim look overall that will compel the reader for a total follow up with future books from one of the most successful english writers of the decade. Let's not forget, Nikki was born in Australia in 1966 and now lives in London as a full time writer and regular contributor of the BBC.
Speaking about successful female writers, M J Hyland is another respected names making her debut in 2003 with "How the lights gets in". This was followed by "Carry me down" in 2006 short listed for the Man Booker prize. Her latest, simply called "This is how" is about a man lost in social complexity. Hyland is far to be an easy writer. In contrary, she is austere with her character and can leave some readers disturb.
I always find a successful writers festival as a medium to enrich our own tastes and explore our sensibilities through words and ideas. I always describe events of this genre as communion of ideas and once again, a sense of inspiration is felt throughout the days.
The highlights for me were various sessions with Marie Darrieussecq. However a separate post will cover that shortly.
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