In conversation with Fiona Stager

The Life to Come

Sat 8 Sep 2018

Michelle de Kretser

The Edge, State Library of Queensland

Contemporary Storytelling / Culture/Social Equity

326

#Performances

#About the event

Duration: 60 minutes

About The Life to Come by Michelle de Krester

Shortlisted for the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Award
Shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Award

Set in Sydney, Paris and Sri Lanka, The Life to Come is a mesmerising novel about the stories we tell and don't tell ourselves as individuals, as societies and as nations. It feels at once firmly classic and exhilaratingly contemporary.

Pippa is a writer who longs for success. Celeste tries to convince herself that her feelings for her married lover are reciprocated. Ash makes strategic use of his childhood in Sri Lanka but blots out the memory of a tragedy from that time. Driven by riveting stories and unforgettable characters, here is a dazzling meditation on intimacy, loneliness and our flawed perception of other people.

Copies of The Life to Come are available for purchase HERE.

#Writer

Michelle de Kretser

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer.

She is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which was widely praised by writers such as AS Byatt, Hilary Mantel and William Boyd and won a swag of awards, including: the 2008 NSW Premier's Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal. The Lost Dog was also shortlisted for the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the Western Australian Premier's Australia-Asia Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Asia-Pacific Region) and Orange Prize's Shadow Youth Panel. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Questions of Travel was the winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Award, the Prime Ministers Literary Award for Fiction and the Western Australian Premier's Prize and Award for Fiction.

#Chairs

Michael Williams

Michael Williams is the Director of the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in Melbourne. He has worked at the Wheeler Centre since inception in 2009, when he was hired as the Head of Programming before being appointed as Director in September 2011.

For 2015-2016 he hosted Blueprint for Living and now hosts Talkfest on RN. He remains a regular guest on ABC radio and TV. Michael has also worked as a Breakfast presenter for Melbourne’s 3RRR, as a member of the Australia Council’s Literature Board, in publishing and has written extensively for The Guardian, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and elsewhere.

Fiona Stager

Fiona Stager is the owner of Avid Reader and Where the Wild Things Are. She has only ever been a bookseller apart from a brief and not so wondrous career as a waitress. Fiona has been a judge of The Courier-Mail Book of the Year Award, The Australian/Vogel Literary Award and The Stella Prize. In 2009 Fiona received the Queensland Writers' Centre (QWC) Johnno Award for her out-standing contribution to Queensland writers and writing. In 2013 Fiona was awarded a Local Legend award for her work over many years in West End. In 2014 Fiona was awarded Life Membership of the Australian Bookseller's Association for her contribution to the Australian bookselling industry. She was previously the President of the Australian Bookseller's Association (ABA). She lives in West End with her family, three chickens and a native beehive.