21. Geordie Williamson on Alexis Wright

Alexis Wright’s novels are often thought of as “difficult,” but this episode of Fully Lit Live challenges that label, and asks what that word is really doing.

Critic Geordie Williamson is the author of the recent On Alexis Wright, part of Black Ink’s 'Writers on Writers' series. In this conversation with Ivor Indyk, Wright’s publisher and editor at Giramondo, we learn how to read Wright’s books on their own terms — with attention to rhythm, repetition, and scale rather than plot alone.

Moving through Carpentaria, The Swan Book, and Praiseworthy, the discussion centres on Wright’s idea of ‘all time’: a narrative field where ancestral, mythic, and present time coexist, and where people, animals, weather systems and spirits all speak.

What happens when we make space for Wright’s digressions and tonal shifts, and allow ourselves the time she demands?

GUESTS

Geordie Williamson has been chief literary critic of The Australian since 2008. He is publisher of the Picador imprint at Pan Macmillan, a former editor of Island Magazine and Best Australian Essays, and author of The Burning Library, a collection of essays on neglected figures from Australian literature. He lives in Hobart.

Ivor Indyk is the publisher of the Giramondo book imprint and Whitlam Chair in the Writing & Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney.

CREDITS

This episode is brought to you in partnership with our friends at Gleebooks. Head to the Gleebooks events page to discover more great literary events featuring some of Australia’s best and best known authors.

Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros.

Executive Producer, Sarah Gilbert. This episode was mixed by Siobhan Moylan.

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