Episode description
Robert delivers a heartwarming love letter to a French-English dictionary (purportedly).
Robert Dessaix is known as a leading broadcaster, for many years the producer and presenter of the ABC's Books and Writing program. He left his twenty year academic career as a lecturer in Russian language and literature at the University of New South Wales, and the Australian National University, to work in theatre and for the ABC. He is a novelist, essayist, critic and translator.
Adopted as a baby, in 1994 he published A Mother's Disgrace, an autobiographical account of his experience of adoption, and also edited Australian Gay and Lesbian Writing: an Anthology for OUP.
Other books include Turgenev: The Quest for Faith (1980); Picador New Writing (1993, edited with Helen Daniel); A Practical Handbook of Russian Aspects (1994); Night Letters (1996) which was his first novel, and was shortlisted for a number of awards including the Miles Franklin; Secrets (1997, with Amanda Lohrey and Drusilla Modjeska); and Speaking Their Minds (1998); a book of short fiction, essays and journalism entitled (and so forth). He also worked on Great Travellers a ten-part series for ABC Radio. His other publications include Corfu: a Novel (2001). Twilight of Love followed, which highlighted Robert's fascination with Russia and in particular Russian writers. Released at the Melbourne Writers' Week in 2004. Arabesques, (2004) was based on the life and travels of Nobel Prize winning author André Gide. Part travel, part memoir.
Robert's recent collection of non-fiction, As I was Saying, is a swirling conversation with the reader on everything from travel to dogs and cats, from sport and swearing to the pleasures of idleness. Robert lives in Tasmania.
Queerstories is an LGBTQIA+ storytelling night programmed by Maeve Marsden, with regular events in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. For Queerstories event dates, visit www.maevemarsden.com, and follow Queerstories on Facebook.
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