This year’s Byron Writers Festival is a first-look destination, with several of Australia’s most anticipated new books arriving at the festival before the ink has barely dried. From forensic political analysis to fiction that quietly breaks your heart, this is a program for readers who want to be first.
Richard Flanagan, the only author ever to have won both the Booker Prize and the Baillie Gifford Prize, brings Heresies, a dazzling collection of essays, articles and speeches spanning 20 years. From Manus to MONA, from the destruction of the natural world to the hope offered by Indigenous Australia, from Salman Rushdie to the Segal Report, Flanagan’s non-fiction carries his trademark elegance, subversive wit and humanity. A showcase of heretical brilliance that speaks directly to our times.
Meg Mason returns to Byron Writers Festival with Sophie, Standing There, her follow-up to Sorrow and Bliss, the novel that became a global phenomenon and found its way into the hands of readers who don’t usually describe themselves as fiction lovers. Tender, darkly funny and unexpectedly consoling, the new book explores heartbreak, isolation and the unlikely salvation that books can offer.
George Megalogenis, one of Australia’s most respected political journalists and authors, brings Three Shocks, his rigorous account of the demographic, gender and geopolitical forces that have quietly but fundamentally reshaped Australian politics. A writer who has long traced the deep currents beneath the political surface, Megalogenis makes sense of a country in transition, and asks what comes next.
Amy Remeikis, political journalist and one of the sharpest voices in Australian public life, delivers Screw Nice, a pointed dismantling of the politics of civility. The book argues that demands for politeness are wielded as a weapon against those who can least afford to stay quiet and makes the case for why it’s time to stop playing by rules designed to silence.
• Full program and tickets available at www.byronwritersfestival.com.
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