Leading local, national and international writers will come together for this year's Adelaide Writers' Week to explore the singular truth of Being Human. Across six days from Saturday February 29 - Thursday March 5, 117 writers, poets, journalists, historians, scientists, politicians and academics from around the world will come together for the 35th edition of Adelaide Writers' Week since its inception 60 years ago as part of the first Adelaide Festival.
56 local and international names have been added to the program, including award winning author Helen Garner (AUS), best seller Michael Christie (CAN), environmental scientist and leading climate-change writer Tim Flannery (AUS), concert pianist and writer Anna Goldsworthy (AUS), former white supremacist leader and co-founder of Life After Hate Tony McAleer (CAN), playwright, screenwriter and author Christos Tsiolkas (AUS) and iconic musician Archie Roach (AUS).
They join already announced names including respected journalist Tony Jones (AUS), Omani author, academic and 2019 Booker International prize winner Jokha Alharthi (OMN), best-selling author Jung Chang a??ae??(CHN), award winning novelist and biographer Blanche d'Alpuget (AUS), acclaimed children's writer Julia Donaldson (UK), and respected community leader Tim Costello AO (AUS).
Free open-air readings, panel sessions and literary conversations in the Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden will run across the week with authors exploring how humans engage with each other, with technology, and with the natural world in this age of vulnerability.
In her second year as Director of Adelaide Writers' Week, Jo Dyer's program will again prove challenging and thought-provoking for audiences.
"In 2020 there are many things that divide us in our fractured, fractious world but amongst it all we are unavoidably, incontrovertibly united by our humanity, by being human. Through the words and minds of great thinkers, we hope to engage everyone, from children to young adults, university students to the elderly. With a program that starts in the early morning and continues until the sun sets, we hope to make this year's Writers' Week the most accessible yet. We invite you to join us and some of the world's most fascinating minds in the Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden for six compelling days."
The 2020 Opening Event, The Only Constant, will be held in the new Festival venue The Workshop (below the Festival Centre) on Thursday February 27 and it invites us to reflect on the only constant in life, the only thing we can be sure of in these unsettling times: change. It features three of this year's most fascinating writers - Nigerian-American writer Chigozie Obioma whose most recent novel An Orchestra of Minorities, like his debut The Fishermen, was shortlisted for the Booker prize. Also featured is Sanam Maher, a Karachi-based journalist who has covered stories on art, culture, business, politics, religious minorities and women, and whose book A Woman Like Her tells of the short life and violent death of Qandeel Baloch, known as Pakistan's Kim Kardashian. The third writer featured is Tyson Yunkaporta, academic, critic, researcher and raconteur from the Apalech Clan in Far North Queensland. Each author reflects on the relentless fluidity of our ever-changing times.
Videos