From David’s Desk

Sydney Writers’ Festival is, excitingly, upon us again. We’ve taken the opportunity in this Gleaner to highlight some writers that we would love to see (if only we weren’t totally tied up with selling books). Ours is an eclectic list, but even the brief snapshot it represents gives you the flavour of treasure that a well-curated Festival can offer. And there are plenty of live-to-air and podcasts after the event as well. Enjoy.

Meanwhile, back at the (Old Post Office) ranch, we have settled into our delightful new surroundings for a year and would love to see you here. It’s a charming new home.

Connections between Vietnamese history, French colonialism, contemporary Australian society and family and personal identity are explored in depth. What feels like a novel is very much more than that. It’s a fascinating, complex and rewarding book.

I’m now reading an advance copy of the eagerly and long-awaited new work from Anna Funder, Wifedom (July). It’s a knockout, fabulous, great. Curiously, as with Anam, this is a genre-bending and twisting, attention-demanding book, which is absolutely compelling. More about it in a couple of months, but suffice it to say that in “rediscovering” the life of George Orwell’s forgotten wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, Funder has brilliantly and profoundly interrogated what it means to be a writer and what it means to be a wife.

And for what it’s worth, here’s a book or two I’ve been reading and hoping you’ll enjoy:

Andre Dao’s Anam (May) is the most original and exciting first work I’ve read in ages. Ostensibly a narrative of a grandson’s journey to learn his family’s story, this is a brilliant blend of fiction, history, biography and (primarily post-colonial) theory. It takes us from Hanoi in the 1930s to present-day Melbourne and Cambridge. Anam asks how we can look at the past and make sense of the present and future when so much is unresolved or unknown.

I’ve also just caught up with a couple of beauties from last year that I’d highly recommend if you’ve missed them. Fiona McGregor’s Iris is dazzling, engrossing historical fiction of the first order, an authentic recreation of the underbelly of Sydney life in the 1930s. And

I was delighted by Yiyum Li’s The Book of Goose, a strange and fascinating tale from a thoroughly original writer.

Catch you at the festival!

David