There’s no better way to prepare for the year ahead than by reviewing the
books that have defined us in 2014. From fresh and visionary writing by
authors such as Fiona McFarlane, Omar Musa, Ellen van Neerven and
Ceridwen Dovey to bestselling political memoirs and major new work by
Australian greats Helen Garner, Tim Winton, J.M. Coetzee, Alexis Wright, Christos Tsiolkas, Michelle de Kretser, Tom Keneally and David Malouf. Then there was Annabel Crabb’s witty and astute The Wife Drought, and Robert Dessaix’s sublime What Days Are For in which every sentence sings. And who could forget the morning we all woke up to Richard Flanagan winning the Man Booker Prize, taking the world by storm with The Narrow Road to the Deep
North?
Australian writing has never been in finer form.
In terms of international titles, we flocked to get hold of Hilary Mantel’s The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Thomas Piketty’s Capital, Karen Joy
Fowler’s word-of-mouth hit We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and of course Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. The elusive Italian author, writing
under the pseudonym Elena Ferrante, has been the talk of the literary town
with her Neapolitan series – if you want a taste, start with My Brilliant Friend.
Keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter over the holiday season for other great summer reading recommendations from some of our favourite writers.
I hope you discovered many more writers at this year’s Sydney Writers’
Festival including Gary Shteyngart, who returned to New York with many
stories about Sydney’s gastronomy and literary style – if you haven’t read his article, catch up here.
Looking ahead, 2015 holds more bookish treasures than I can mention but to
give a few hints, look out for new books by Australian writers Malcolm Knox,
Steve Toltz and Kate Grenville. Don’t miss out on our special events early in
the new year with Neil Gaiman on 31 January and The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle on 25 February.
Thanks to our new Head of Children's Programs, Jeanmarie Morosin and following on from our inaugural Children’s Festival of Moving Stories, we will be presenting one of the world’s greatest writers for kids on 21 February, Julia Donaldson of The Gruffalo fame.
On behalf of Executive Director Ben Strout and all of us at Sydney Writers’ Festival, I’d like to wish you a warm, relaxed Christmas and New Year, with
time to put your feet up and read all of those books you’ve been meaning to
read.
Jemma Birrell
Artistic Director
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