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Book Reading
The Book Show
By Design
The Deep End
Exhibit A
First Person
Lingua Franca
MovieTime
The Night Air
PoeticA
Short Story
Project
The Space
The Book Show
By Design
The Deep End
Exhibit A
First Person
Lingua Franca
MovieTime
The Night Air
PoeticA
Short Story
Project
The Space
 | Programs in 2001 Summaries are available for all stories, and some are transcribed. Click on a story title to see the full details. To see a list of only the stories which have been transcribed, please visit our transcript index. Audio-on-demand is available for the last four programs. ( Help with listening ) Stories by Year [ 2006 & 2005 | 2004 |2003 |2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 ] Stories by Subject [ 2006 & 2005 | 2004 | 2003 ] Program Summaries and Transcripts December 2001 B.Wongar, Summer Series 2 Sunday 30 December 2001 This week on the program, the extraordinary story of B Wongar. He arrived in Australia in 1960's as a Serbian migrant, and headed for the Northern Territory where he fell in love with Aboriginal people and their culture. He was saved from death in the Tanami Desert by a Warlpiri man, was frogmarched from the country by two Top End thugs, had a manuscript stolen by the Victorian police, and currently lives with two dingos in suburban Caulfield. He has published more than 10 books, and is well known in Europe, but virtually unknown here. An intriguing story, here on Books and Writing. [ more ] V.S.Naipaul, Summer Series program 1. Sunday 23 December 2001 This week on the program Robert Dessaix talks with V.S. Naipaul at the Melbourne Writers Festival in his first ever public interview. The Booker and Nobel Prize winning author of more than two dozen books, Naipaul discusses his new novel Half a Life, the three big taboo subjects, sex, politics and religion and his life's work in literature. This program was first broadcast in Sept 2001. [ more ] Tim Winton and writing the story of the Australian underclass. Sunday 16 December 2001 This week on the program, Tim Winton on Dirt Music. In this wide-ranging conversation, Winton speaks about his beloved West Coast with its rugged and austere scenery and population, how luck works as a force of nature and he defends his characters from those who would label them as "low lives." [ more ] Michael Ondaatje, in conversation Sunday 9 December 2001 This week on the program, the last of this series from the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Michael Ondaatje speaks about his latest book Anil's Ghost, his country of origin Sri Lanka and returning to a place where you are no longer the person you were when you left, the poetic eye, and his fascination with the editing process in both books and films. [ more ] A.L.Kennedy and the PEN Lecture Sunday 2 December 2001 This week on the program Scottish author and commentator AL Kennedy delivers the annual PEN Lecture at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival. She argues passionately that the writer's power can transcend even the most dire of situations, can humanize events reduced to horrific facts, can imagine the solutions as well as the dangers of fragmenting societies, despite or perhaps because of the fact that much of what they write is total fiction. [ more ] November 2001 P.D.James, Ian Rankin, and Frieda Hughes Sunday 25 November 2001 This week on the program, the second in our special series from the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the first lady of British crime PD James, speaks to the master of Scottish crime, Ian Rankin. In this lively conversation, the Baroness and the Master discuss the joys and pitfalls of the ever-popular crime fiction genre. [ more ] Gore Vidal Sunday 18 November 2001 This week on the program, America's biographer Gore Vidal, but is he the doctor and the analyst too? In an extra-ordinarily prescient interview conducted just before Sept 11th at this year's Edinburgh International Book festival, Vidal talks of understanding the mind of the terrorist and takes to task the America of fellow writers John Updike and Norman Mailer. [ more ] Pat Barker, Graham Robb on Rimbaud Sunday 11 November 2001 This week on the program, live on stage at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Booker prize winner Pat Barker speaks about her fascination with the world of psychology, borderline personality disorders and the famous story about her grandfather's bayonet wound. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Regeneration Trilogy and her latest book is Borderline. [ more ] Gwen Harwood, Rodney Hall and John Tranter Sunday 4 November 2001 This week on the program, poet Dorothy Porter speaks to Greg Kratzmann editor of the new selected poems and letters of Gwen Harwood, about the woman who lived an extra-ordinary imaginative life as a quiet housewife in Tasmania [ more ] October 2001 Plants and Animals, Dead and Alive Sunday 28 October 2001 American Michael Pollan speaks to Wendy Barnaby about his book The Botany of Desire, where he argues nature in fact manipulates us to get what it desires rather than the other way around. [ more ] Life Stories Sunday 21 October 2001 Canadian author Isabel Huggan reviews a new biography of Canada's "Queen Bee" Margaret Atwood, written by Nathalie Cooke, [ more ] Light on Dark Lives Sunday 14 October 2001 A guest at the CHOGM Writers Event in Brisbane, Glasgow-born writer Andrew O'Hagan, whose first novel Our Fathers was short listed for the Booker Prize, discusses the challenge of writing about Scotland, with its fantasies about its past and dimming hopes for the future. [ more ] Zanzibar and Beyond Sunday 7 October 2001 Robert Dessaix speaks with Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Zanzibari writer now teaching in the UK about his latest highly acclaimed novel By the Sea - a book about asylum-seekers, quarrelling families, forgiveness and the exotic. [ more ] September 2001 Obsessions Sunday 30 September 2001 Robert Dessaix speaks to Martin Dugard author of Farther Than Any Man about the incredible journeys of Captain James Cook, including, in the scheme of things, the rather minor exploit of "discovering" Australia. (Allen and Unwin) [ more ] Post Soviet Writing Sunday 23 September 2001 This week on the program, books set in Russia, Georgia and Armenia. [ more ] V.S.Naipaul Sunday 16 September 2001 This week on the program Robert Dessaix talks with V.S. Naipaul at the Melbourne Writers Festival in his first ever public interview. The Booker Prize winning author of more than two dozen books, Naipaul discusses his new novel Half a Life, the three big taboo subjects, sex, politics and religion and his life's work in literature. [ more ] Elizabeth Jolley, James Cowan and Good Reading Sunday 9 September 2001 This week, James Cowan speaks to Robert Dessaix about the complex man who came to be known as St Francis of Assisi. Would a man who renounced the tyranny of things find a place in modern society? (Francis A Saint's Way)Caroline Baum, the editor of the new magazine Good Reading explains the need for a magazine for all those readers who are not part of the literary scene. And Sian Prior speaks to Elizabeth Jolley about the complicated love triangle at the heart of her new novel, An Innocent Gentleman. [ more ] Robert Dessaix; Brian Aldiss Sunday 2 September 2001 This week on the program Robert Dessaix's new novel Corfu. Following the strange but true Adelaide actor Kester Berwick to the Greek Island of Corfu, Robert Dessaix's narrator takes up the now classic Dessaix themes of travel, friendship, Russian literature, living meaningfully and the ever mysterious Albania. [ more ] August 2001 Michael Ondaatje and David Malouf Sunday 26 August 2001 This week on the program from the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Ramona Koval speaks to leading literary lights, Canadian Michael Ondaatje and Australia's own David Malouf speaking about lost classics, books they have loved and lost, books that have had a lasting impact but can never be found again. [ more ] Robert Louis Stevenson Sunday 19 August 2001 This week on the program, as the Edinburgh International Festival opens, a conversation recorded at last year's Festival about one of that city's favourite sons, Robert Louis Stevenson. He has inspired generations with his classic children's books Treasure Island and Kidnapped and caught the pulse of many modern concerns with his books for adults like The Strange Case of Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde linked in this conversation to the boom in Edinburgh crime writing. The panellists are award winning travel writer Gavin Bell, whose book In Search of Tusitala follows in the footsteps of RLS, Poet and professor of English at St Andrews University Robert Crawford and Biographer Jenni Calder who wrote RSL A Life Study. [ more ] Dorothy Porter, Simone Lazaroo Sunday 12 August 2001 This week on the program an exploration of other worlds with two Australian women writers. [ more ] B.Wongar Sunday 5 August 2001 This week on the program, the extraordinary story of B Wongar. He arrived in Australia in 1960's as a Serbian migrant, and headed for the Northern Territory where he fell in love with Aboriginal people and their culture. He was saved from death in the Tanami Desert by a Warlpiri man, was frogmarched from the country by two Top End thugs, had a manuscript stolen by the Victorian police, and currently lives with two dingos in suburban Caulfield. He has published more than 10 books, and is well known in Europe, but virtually unknown here. An intriguing story, here on Books and Writing. [ more ] July 2001 Blokes Rule, Okay? Sunday 29 July 2001 This week a Boys Own Books and Writing. [ more ] Barbara Blackman Sunday 22 July 2001 This week Books and Writing features the Australian essayist, librettist and letter writer, Barbara Blackman. Barbara's biography 'Glass after Glass' inspired another look at her amazing life. At 15 Barbara Blackman was the youngest member of 'Barjai', an avant-garde writers group in Brisbane (Thea Astley was the eldest at 21). After marrying the painter Charles Blackman, they moved to Melbourne in the fifties, linking up with key names in Australian art today; Arthur Boyd, Fred Williams, Joy Hester, John and Sunday Reed, Clifton Pugh, John Perceval, Len French, Mirka Mora and many more. Barbara Blackman talks about her writing, ideas and friendships to Donna McLachlan for Books and Writing. [ more ] Mordecai Richler, Tegan Bennett, Charmain Clift Sunday 15 July 2001 This week on the program, Mordecai Richler the Canadian author of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz who died this week at the age of 70. He spoke to Ramona Koval in 1999, about his long career as a writer, the hypocrisies and absurdities of living in bi-lingual Quebec and the lively vantage of writing from the edge of the grave. [ more ] Displacement, Culture and Migration Sunday 8 July 2001 Live at the Sydney Writers Festival, ex-pat Australian Lee Tulloch, discusses her new book Two Shanes and her life and perceptions on living in the Big Apple. [ more ] Gitta Sereny Sunday 1 July 2001 One of the world's most respected journalists and historians, Gitta Sereny recorded live at the Edinburgh Writers Festival, speaks about her famous biography of Albert Speer as well as her latest work, The German Trauma: Experiences and Reflections 1938-2000 based on her research into the German soul over the last 60 years. [ more ] June 2001 Manil Suri Sunday 24 June 2001 This week, mathematics professor turned novelist Manil Suri. Born an only child in old Bombay, Suri found space and time to follow his passion for mathematics and writing. His first novel, The Death Of Vishnu begins when the old man Vishnu is found dying on the stoop of an apartment block in Bombay. As the neighbours argue about who will call an ambulance, Suri unfolds the drama of these characters' lives - and Vishnu himself - could he in fact be the powerful god who controls the fate of the universe? [ more ] The Land of Stories Sunday 17 June 2001 This week, from the land of stories, two books on Celtic mythology and the spirit of Irish story-telling. Psychoanalyst and author Peter O'Connor speaks to writer and journalist Martin Flanagan about his new book, Beyond the Mist, what Irish Mythology can teach us about ourselves,Dame Leonie Kramer reviews David Foster's new book The Land Where Stories End, and Ramona Koval speaks to David Foster about the new book which begins with a beautiful princess locked in a tower and a wood-cutter with a wife and 17 children who vows to rescue and wed the princess, a fairy-tale that explores the roots of Christianity, alchemy and marriage. [ more ] Coming Up Bloomsday Wednesday 13 June 2001 In the lead up to Bloomsday two Irish writers one from the past and the other from the present. Visiting Irish Poet Harry Clifton speaks about exile and Irish ex-patriot poetry. From its origins with James Joyce as a romantic decision to "forge the nations conscience in the smithy of his soul" to more contemporary poets decision to escape the confines of Irish morality to find the freedom of urban lifestyles in the big cities of London, Paris and New York, Harry Clifton suggests exile is a distinctly Irish tradition that has changed significantly in the last 100 years. [ more ] Hilary McPhee Sunday 3 June 2001 This week from the Sydney Writer's Festival, editor and publisher, now author Hilary Mc Phee discusses her new book, Other People's Words. In this public discussion, Hilary speaks about her story-telling grandmother who sparked her childhood interest in literature and her life-time involvement in Australian publishing, an industry for which she tolds grave concerns. [ more ] May 2001 From the Sydney Writers' Festival Sunday 27 May 2001 This week, three guests of the Sydney Writers' Festival. [ more ] Searching for Paradise in the New World Sunday 20 May 2001 This week a conversation held recently in Melbourne about two works of art based on the 1629 sinking of the Dutch East Indies flagship, the Batavia. Arabella Edge's The Company, written from the point of view of the evil Jeronimus Cornelius, the head mutineer on the Batavia, has just won the Sth East Asian region Commonwealth Writers Prize for a first novel, and has also been shortlisted for the Miles Frankiln award. Coincidently, composer, conductor and performer Richard Mills and librettist Peter Goldsworthy have just staged to great acclaim, their opera based on the same story, last week-end in Melbourne. So why does this story hold so much appeal across the ages and the different genres? [ more ] Forgers, Map Thieves and the Poet Laureate Sunday 13 May 2001 This week, Poet Laureate Andrew Motion on his new book Wainewright the Poisoner which is a fictional biography of the 19th century artist and critic Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.A contemporary of William Blake, Charles Lamb and Keats, Wainewright was transported from the high life in literary London to Van Diemens Land on charges of forgery and suspicion of murder. [ more ] Voices From Bundanon Sunday 6 May 2001 This week on Books and Writing - three wonderfully different Australian writers Robert Dessaix, Druisella Modjeska and Barbara Blackman speaking candidly to Caroline Baum about their writing process, recorded recently at the Bundanon Education Centre in the spectacular grounds of Arthur Boyd's studio and home. [ more ] April 2001 Four Australian Women Sunday 29 April 2001 Sally Muirden speaks about her new book We Too Shall Be Mothers inspired by the 1793 engraving by Jean Jacques Le Queu of a nun exposing a rather well endowed bosom. She speaks about attempting to write from a Matriarchal view-point, the pull between the sexual and the spiritual and the music she imagines for her characters. [ more ] Mild Women and Wild Women. Friday 20 April 2001 This week on the program Canadian author Carol Shields speaks about her fascination with people's goodness, her celebration of domestic detail and elevating the ordinary to the extra-ordinary which she says can act as a prompt to revelation. Her new book is a collection of short stories called, Dressing Up for the Carnival. And Melbourne art historian and novelist Janine Burke ruminates on wild woman and French icon Marguerite Duras as depicted in the new biography by Laure Adler. [ more ] David Lodge Friday 6 April 2001 Can we ever really know what another person is thinking? What is consciousness and will it be science or art that manages to fathom these difficult questions. All this and more forms the heart of the latest novel called Thinks from English author, academic and satirist par excellence, David Lodge. [ more ] March 2001 Margaret Atwood Friday 23 March 2001 This week, last year's Booker Prize recipient Margaret Atwood on her winning novel, The Blind Assassin. Recorded live in front of a sell-out crowd in Melbourne last week, Atwood speaks to Sian Prior about secrets, sibling relationships and the writing of the novel, within the novel, within the novel. [ more ] Diaspora and Poetry Friday 16 March 2001 This week on the program, two perspectives on the migrant experience- Arnold Zable, author, journalist and story-teller speaks about his new novel Cafe Sheherazade based on the iconic cafe in Melbourne's St Kilda where members of the Jewish diaspora have gathered for years to eat the famous old style cooking, reminisce and tell tall tales. What else is there to do on a wintry Melbourne night, already? [ more ] The Art Of Song and Protest Friday 9 March 2001 This week as the Port Fairy Folk Festival tunes up, we look at the art of song and protest. A good song can sum up moments in a long life, capture a public sentiment in a line or two or become annoyingly embedded inside your head. Warren Fahey founder of Larrikin Records and folklorist discusses his new book, Ratbags and Rabblerousers and the tradition of writing protest songs in Australia. And English folk artist Steve Ashley discusses his work which draws inspiration from traditional themes like the changing seasons, gardens, family and the joys of a winter fire. [ more ] Samuel Pepys, Philip Salom and John Kinsella Friday 2 March 2001 This week, the iconic Samuel Pepys, the great diarist of Restoration London whose personal journals chronicle the goings on in the upper-classes during the time of the Plague and the Great Fire. He is the latest subject of noted biographer and literary editor, Claire Tomlin who believes Pepys' diaries are "more inspired than Defoe, deeper than Dickens and more subtle than Proust". Not only that but he also inspired Benny Hill's series, The Naughty Mr Pepys! Icon indeed. [ more ] February 2001 Crimes, Lies and Publishing. Friday 23 February 2001 At last year's Edinburgh Writer's Festival,UK author Colin Dexter talks to Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin about the rise and fall of the famous Inspector Morse who was recently "killed off" by his creator Dexter. [ more ] Nature's Gentlemen, Part 2 Friday 16 February 2001 This week, Roger Deakin speaks to English author Ronald Blythe, another writer whose passion is his surroundings. His biography of the Suffolk Village Akenfield, written in 1970 was recently re-published as a Penguin Twentieth Century Classic. He has written many books over the years, as well as short-stories, poems and critical works on Thomas Hardy, William Hazlitt, Henry James and Jane Austen. and Australian writer and poet Eric Rolls speaks to Ramona Koval about his new book Australia- A Biography that starts at the very beginning with the big bang... or was that a series of smaller ones? He discusses the problems of living on ancient soils, the poet's take on science writing and the tragic fate of a family of dinosaurs 80 million years old, as revealed in some fossilised tracks. [ more ] Nature's Gentlemen- Part One Friday 9 February 2001 This week,the first of a two part series on the writing of some of Nature's Gentlemen. Roger Deakin speaks to British author Richard Mabey who has written for years on the subjects closest to his heart-that of nature and the environment, but as you will hear he is also fascinated by the way humans interact with the natural world. An advocate on the virtues of staying put, Mabey's books are also about gaining a deep knowledge of the world around you. [ more ] The Art of Biography Friday 2 February 2001 This week on the program, the art of biography. At a packed session at last year's Brisbane Writers' Festival, Matthew Ricketson, John Birmingham and Michael King spoke about the problems and rewards of writing biographies. What limitations are there when the subject is still alive, what responsibility does the biographer have to the truth and what do you do when your subject is an entire city? [ more ] January 2001 Edward Hirsch ..Summer Series Friday 26 January 2001 This week, the seduction of poetry, and how to read it with American poet, critic and editor Edward Hirsch. His book, How to read a poem- and fall in love with poetry is a surprising best seller in the USA and its Hirsch's personal passion for the form, which he suggests is best read in the dead of the night, that is probably why this book is so popular. (Harcourt Brace and Company) [ more ] Nicholas Shakespeare ..Summer Series Friday 19 January 2001 This week, the English author and biographer, Nicholas Shakespeare who was a guest at last year's Perth Writers' Festival. Shakespeare's two novels were conceived from his obsession with the elusive leader of the Peruvian Shining Path guerillas. As you will hear, the real and the fictional world can be eerily similar and it is amazing what confidence a good speaking voice will give you! His latest book is the authorised biography of the writer Bruce Chatwin. Shakespeare discusses the problems of writing the story of the complicated English writer who has become a cult figure since his pre-mature death. [ more ] Martin Cruz Smith ..Summer Series Friday 12 January 2001 This week on the program, US political and crime writer Martin Cruz Smith famous for his thriller Gorky Park discusses the fascinating relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union - the background of his latest book Havana Bay, his knowledge of forensic science and street fighting, his abiding loathing of missionaries and his stint as a professional Indian in his childhood. He spoke to Ramona Koval at the Sydney Writers' Festival. [ more ] David Malouf - 'Dream Stuff'... Summer Series Friday 5 January 2001 This week a public conversation with the gifted Australian author David Malouf, whose writing has been delighting readers and attracting prizes for almost four decades. David speaks to Ramona Koval about his new collection of short stories, Dream Stuff, in front of an enthusiastic crowd at the St Kilda Town Hall. (Random House) [ more ] Stories by Year [ 2006 & 2005 | 2004 |2003 |2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 ] | |
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