Current Issue #488

Adelaide Writers' Week explores the zeitgeist with 2019 program

Adelaide Writers' Week explores the zeitgeist with 2019 program

Adelaide Writers Week will branch out from its hallowed tents and lawns in a 2019 program that includes Man Booker Prize winner Ben Okri, Germaine Greer and Gillian Triggs.

Amidst the colour and spectacle of this week’s 2019 Adelaide Festival program launch came our first proper glimpse of the long-running literary festival as it takes fresh shape under new Director Jo Dyer. Former President of the Australian Human Rights Commission Professor Gillian Triggs, 7.30 presenter and author Leigh SalesThe Arsonist author Chloe Hooper and historian Lyndall Ryan are just some of the names confirmed to pull up a seat in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens in March.

In a significant new addition, two major ticketed events form the centrepieces of a program that expands the festival into the evening. First comes the Adelaide Writers Week Opening Address, which in its inaugural year will be delivered by Ben Okri. The Nigerian author of The Famished Road and The Freedom Artist will speak to the power of storytelling and the imagination in the address, to be held at The Palais on Thursday February 28.

Ben Okri
Man Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri

Further down the river at Elder Hall, The Zeigeist Series will dissect the burning questions at the heart of our political and social discourse through a series of conversations and panels. ‘Rage, Rape and Revolution’ will see a panel including Germaine Greer, Sohaila Abdulali, Soraya Chemaly and Lucia Osborne-Crowley debate the long-term outcomes of the #metoo movement – a particularly timely subject in the wake of Adelaide Festival co-director Neal Armfield’s testimony at Geoffrey Rush’s defamation proceedings against The Daily Telegraph.

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum will offer an insight into the tumultuous US politics of the 2000s, and the even more turbulent Trump era, in a conversation with the Hon. Bob Carr on Tuesday March 9, while fellow ex-Senator Scott Ludlam will chair the final panel in the series. ‘Reframing the Future’ brings together Africa Rising Foundation Ndaba Mandela, Icelandic politican Birgitta Jonsdottir and constitutional reform advocate Professor Megan Davis on Thursday March 7.

Another, free series of ‘Twilight Talks’ will stretch the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden programs into the night with two evenings of music, wine and discussion from an as yet unrevealed variety of featured authors.

UPDATE: Read the second and final 2019 Adelaide Writers’ Week program announcement here

Adelaide Writers Week 
March 2 – 7
adelaidefestival.com.au/writers-week/

Adelaide Writers Week 2019 authors

Sohaila Abdulali
Stephanie Bishop
Paul Bloom
Bob Carr
Soraya Chemaly
Peter Cochrane
Trent Dalton
Megan Davis
Esi Edugyan
Kassem Eid
Carolin Emcke
Future D Fidel
David Frum
Sujatha Gidla
Germaine Greer
Mohammed Hanif
Jane Harper
Chloe Hooper
Leslie Jamison
Kirk Wallace Johnson
Gail Jones
Birgitta Jonsdottir
Jing Jing Lee
Melissa Lucashenko
Darren McGarvey
Bruno Maçães
Will Mackin
Nancy Maclean
Terese Marie Mailhot
Ndaba Mandela
Maeve Marsden
George Megalogenis
Andrew Miller
Margaret Morgan
Robin Morgan
Bob Murphy
Alice Nelson
Mads Peder Nordbo
Patrick Nunn
Ben Okri
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Anuradha Roy
Lyndall Ryan
Ahmed Saadawi
Amy Sackville
Leigh Sales
Preti Taneji
Joelle Taylor
Gillian Triggs
Maria Tumarkin
Marlene van Nierkerk
Adam Wakeling
Toby Walsh
Clare Wright
Markus Zusak

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