"Everyday could be a day of unthinkable richness if we just keep still, attend and be present to what the place that we live in wants to do." Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers talks about the power of wilderness to centre his characters in Bewilderment, his Booker Prize-shortlisted novel. Also, two time winner of the Miles Franklin, Michelle de Kretser, on her new book, Scary Monsters which is a book in two parts, with two front covers, and is an exploration of the migrant experience....
Oct 31, 2021•54 min
"The journey is the oldest story known to humanity", says bestselling American author Amor Towles, whose third book is based on this archetypal narrative and takes a group of lost boys on an unpredictable road trip in The Lincoln Highway. Also, Booker Prize shortlisted author Anuk Arudpragasam with A Passage North and Vietnamese American Monique Truong's exploration of Lafcadio Hearn, the 19th century Creole cookbook author and Japanese folktale collector, in The Sweetest Fruits....
Oct 24, 2021•54 min
Liane Moriarty's latest novel is Apples Never Fall and as another TV adaptation of her work wraps us, she is adamant she will never write books with a view to adaptation. Also, British-Turkish Elif Shafak's inventive The Island of Missing Trees set in a divided Cyprus and Booker shortlisted author Damon Galgut's equally inventive, The Promise.
Oct 17, 2021•54 min
Richard Powers is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Overstory. His latest novel, Bewilderment, is about a recently widowed father trying to raise and protect his troubled son, as the planet’s ecology implodes. This novel does not give itself to easy one liners, as its scope is mythical and crosses into the terrain of science fiction while still exploring parental love. Richard Powers is speaking to Claire Nichols.
Oct 14, 2021•12 min
American author Patricia Lockwood's debut novel is a work of two distinct parts. In the first half, we meet a woman addicted to the “portal”, or internet, where she has crafted a unique online presence. In the second half, the protagonist is dragged back in to the real world, after her sister gives birth to a very sick baby. The book is inspired by Patricia’s own life, and her experiences as an aunt to her niece, Lena. It’s a book as funny as it is heartbreaking, and in this interview Patricia t...
Oct 14, 2021•10 min
In 1952, Somali seaman Mahmood Mattan, convicted of the murder of a local shopkeeper, became the last man to be hanged in Cardiff. Forty-five years later, his conviction was quashed. In The Fortune Men, the British-Somali writer Nadifa Mohamed takes this true story and gives it a novel treatment. Amongst the bustling, multiracial town of Tiger Bay, we meet Mattan, a man of quiet dignity and anger, and the corrupt and racist police who frame him for murder. Mohamed also paints a sympathetic portr...
Oct 14, 2021•10 min
American travel writer Maggie Shipstead's third novel Great Circle, is about a fictional aviatrix, Marian Graves, who goes missing in her quest to circumnavigate the globe in 1950. It's also about a troubled Hollywood actor who attempts to resurrect her reputation by taking the lead role in a Marian Graves biopic. The novel explores questions of death and disappearance, as well as the unknowability of the past. Maggie Shipstead speaks to Sarah L'Estrange.
Oct 14, 2021•11 min
South African writer Damon Galgut has now been shortlisted for the Booker three times, and the latest is for his ninth book, The Promise. It is a family saga that begins in 1986 apartheid South Africa and follows one Afrikaner family through to the present. At its heart, is a broken promise that serves as an allegory for modern South Africa. But as Damon tells Sarah L'Estrange, it's also about a dysfunctional family.
Oct 14, 2021•11 min
A Passage North is the second novel by Sri Lankan, Anuk Arudpragasam. It's about a young Tamil man, Krishan, as he travels from Colombo to north Sri Lanka for the funeral of his grandmother's carer. It is an introspective story that follows Krishan's meandering ruminations about the Sri Lankan civil war, trauma, desire and Sanskrit poetry. Anuk Arudpragasam is speaking to Sarah L'Estrange.
Oct 14, 2021•10 min
In 2019, John Boyne faced huge online backlash for a book he wrote about a trans teenager and he's channelled that experience in to his new comic novel, The Echo Chamber. Also, Booker Prize shortlisted author Nadifa Mohamed on The Fortune Men and Emily Bitto’s Wild Abandon, about men, booze, tigers and America.
Oct 10, 2021•54 min
“I admit to regular fits of feeling simply I am not a good person,” says Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections, “and it’s a question that fiction is uniquely poised to engage with”. And it’s a question that is at the heart of his new novel Crossroads. Also, Maggie Shipstead on her Booker Prize shortlisted novel Great Circle, and Robert Gott’s historical crime novel, The Orchard Murders, based on the Messiah of Nunawading.
Oct 03, 2021•54 min
In his latest book Cloud Cuckoo Land, Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Doerr explores the human desire to create utopian worlds in places far from home. CS Pacat on their latest fantasy adventure Dark Rise, and Patricia Lockwood on being shortlisted for this years' Booker Prize for No One Is Talking About This.
Sep 27, 2021•54 min
British rapper, poet and writer, Akala, equates reading and writing to a form of magic. He brings this passion to the page in his debut YA novel, The Dark Lady, about pickpocket Henry, set in the time of Shakespeare's London. Also, The Overthinkers, a debut by a Sydney writing duo and Nick Earls on his heart surgery recovery as well as Empires, his most ambitious novel yet.
Sep 20, 2021•54 min
"My favourite memories as a kid, are watching Saturday afternoon movies," says two time Pulitzer Prize winner, Colson Whitehead, "so I gave myself permission to do a heist book and started planning." Harlem Shuffle was the result. Also, Marion Frith's timely debut Here In the After about an Australian soldier who served in Afghanistan and Charlotte McConaghy on Once There Were Wolves, about rewilding the Scottish highlands.
Sep 13, 2021•54 min
Actor Bryan Brown has published a debut collection of crime fuelled fiction in his 70s, it's called Sweet Jimmy. Also, Anita Heiss takes the 1852 Gundagai flood as the starting point for her novel Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Paige Clark's metaphorical ghosts in She Is Haunted.
Sep 06, 2021•54 min
Booker winning, Pat Barker's preoccupation with who's allowed to speak and who isn't continues with The Women of Troy, the sequel to The Silence of the Girls, her exploration of women in the Ancient Greek classics. Also, journalist Barry Divola on his music inspired road novel and Malla Nunn's Sugar Town Queens, set in post-Mandela South Africa.
Aug 30, 2021•54 min
Kevin Kwan is the man who introduced readers to the world of Singapore's ultra rich in his hit trilogy Crazy Rich Asians. Claire Nichols speaks to him about growing up wealthy in Singapore, his move to the US as a teen and the inspiration for his latest book Sex and Vanity.
Aug 23, 2021•54 min
Kate Grenville's interest in women hemmed in by history comes to the fore in her new audiobook about her grandmother, Always Greener. Also, Lisa Emanuel's debut novel The Covered Wife is about a Sydney woman drawn into a religious cult, and Tony Birch gives poet and editor Evelyn Araluen some writing advice.
Aug 16, 2021•54 min
The Asian expulsion from Uganda with Idi Amin's rise to power in 1972 is the focus of London based author Hafsa Zayyan's debut novel We Are All Birds of Uganda which deals with many themes the author has lived with all her life. Also, John Byron's crime fiction debut, The Tribute, inspired by the Fabrica, a famous medieval anatomy text, and The Airways, a queer ghost story by Jennifer Mills.
Aug 09, 2021•54 min
'Your self worth as an Indian child is totally connected with how well you do in these all encompassing exams'. Rahul Raina's satire about fame, fraud and the All India exam system in How to Kidnap the Rich. Also Mark Brandi on his love of dogs, family and why he wears earmuffs to write and Katherine Brabon's exploration of the Japanese phenomenon of hikikomori in The Shut Ins.
Aug 02, 2021•54 min
Esther Freud's mother had babies at a time when many unwed mothers in the UK and Ireland had their children taken away. Freud says, 'When I thought about the situation of my mother, it struck me how alone and dangerous her situation was'. In I Couldn't Love You More, she imagines if her mother had been forced into one or Ireland's notorious mother and baby homes. Also David Allan-Petale on writing his first book, Locust Summer, on the road, and Jamie Marina Lau's second novel, Gunk Baby, about a...
Jul 26, 2021•54 min
US author Rumaan Alam’s Leave The World Behind is a timely novel about isolation, fear, class and racism. Also, the 20-something women who are starring in coming of age novels and Rawah Arja's Punchbowl Boys High drama The F Team.
Jul 19, 2021•54 min
Amanda Lohrey has been announced as the 2021 winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award for The Labyrinth. Amanda tells Claire Nichols that her aim was to write a narrative that felt like a meditative walk into and out of a labyrinth.
Jul 15, 2021•17 min
Ahead of the Miles Franklin Award announcement, we preview the shortlist and find overlapping themes of migration, violence, fractured families and climate change. Aravind Adiga, Amanda Lohrey, Andrew Pippos, Daniel Davis Wood, Madeleine Watts and Robbie Arnott also reflect on what their novels say about Australia today.
Jul 12, 2021•54 min
Indigenous author Larissa Behrendt questioned whether to include a First Nations lawyer in her latest novel, but she says it felt more authentic given it's a world she knows intimately. Her novel, After Story, explores grief, family and literary travel. Also, Kim Scott on the legacies of history that have inspired his works and Alice Pung's first novel for adults, One Hundred Days, is about a pregnant teenager and her controlling mother.
Jul 05, 2021•54 min
Emma Jane Unsworth examines 21st century women in all their conflicted, messy glory in this in-depth interview about her books including Adults and Animals.
Jun 28, 2021•54 min
You've heard of Nordic Noir but what about Scandi Blanc? Bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith has taken the noir out Swedish crime fiction in his latest series starring the warm-hearted detective Ulf Varg. Also, writer Jessie Tu on her preoccupation with loneliness and a big sweeping narrative about a fictional female pilot who goes missing in the act with US author Maggie Shipstead.
Jun 21, 2021•54 min
Australian writer Jessie Tu says the question of female likeability should no longer exist and it's an idea she explores in her fiction. In this in-depth conversation, she also discusses child prodigies, music, racism and even Sex and the City.
Jun 17, 2021•49 min
There are name generators for new parents and authors alike, so how do writers choose names for their fictional characters? Many authors, including Tony Birch, Garth Nix and Mirandi Riwoe share their stories.
Jun 17, 2021•19 min
Andy Weir is most famous for The Martian, the science-heavy Mars survival story that was made in to a hit film starring Matt Damon, and now he's back now with a new book, Project Hail Mary. Journalist Jacqueline Maley on motherhood and ethics in her debut and the final in Michael Mohammed Ahmad's trilogy featuring his alter-ego, Bani Adam.
Jun 14, 2021•54 min
