Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Tuesday 03 March
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
Michel Faber is one of the world’s most popular literary novelists. His breakout bestselling historical novel The Crimson Petal and the White sold over a million copies, and his eerie debut, Under the Skin, was released as a film starring Scarlett Johansson last year. The Melbourne-bred writer says his sixth novel, The Book of Strange New Things, his ‘most unusual’, will also be his last.
Set in the 21st century, the action takes place on an alien planet, where a minister brings religion to its inhabitants. Back on an Earth beset by climate-change caused chaos, his beloved, achingly missed wife keeps him up to date with the destruction of his home planet. The New York Times says this sad and beautiful book ‘squeezes its genre ingredients to yield a meditation on suffering, love and the origins of religious faith’.
Faber is one of those rare beasts: a critically acclaimed writer who values entertainment as much as his words. ‘If you are a serious literary writer you are almost obligated to provide the intelligent average reader with something that they can relate to and care about,’ he told the Independent.
Be entranced, engaged and entertained in this intimate audience at the Wheeler Centre.
Presented in partnership with Adelaide Writers Week.
Featuring
Michel Faber
Michel Faber has written eight books. In addition to the Whitbread-shortlisted Under the Skin, he is the author of the highly acclaimed The Crimson Petal and the White, The Fire Gospel and The Fahrenheit Twins.
He has also written two novellas, The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps and The Courage Consort, and has won several short story awards, including the Neil Gunn, Ian St James and Macallan.
Born in Holland and brought up in Australia, he now lives in the Scottish Highlands.
Ramona Koval
Ramona Koval is a writer who has worked as a journalist and broadcaster. Her most recent books are A Letter to Layla: Travels to our Deep Past and Near Future, Bloodhound: Searching For My Father, and By the Book: A Reader’s Guide to Life (all published by Text). She was the editor of two volumes of Best Australian Essays (Black Inc.). Her notable literary interviews are collected in Speaking Volumes: Conversations with Remarkable Writers (Scribe).
From 2006 to 2011 she presented Radio National’s Book Show, and before that a series of ABC Radio programs since the 1980s, including the iconic Books and Writing. She has written for the Age, the Australian, The Saturday Paper, and many international literary publications and made radio documentaries for ABC and BBC World Service. She is currently an Honorary Fellow at Deakin University.
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