Adelaide Festival Writers' Week wrap-up
As a jewel in the crown of the Adelaide Festival, Writers' Week (WW) positively dazzled in 2013.
It was not that the literary line up was better than in other years. It wasn't. Two of the major drawcards dropped out and the list of writers was criticised by many as being too long and eclectic.
It was, however, an interesting array of writers whence emerged a thematic strength which gave the event a certain cogency and cohesion - and, for those able to connect with it, produced a profound experience.
The subject of war rose to the fore with writers such as American Kevin Powers and his remarkable ‘Yellow Birds’ book about the very different character of contemporary warfare in Iraq and the different psychological toll it takes on combat troops. Tatjana Soli with her book, ‘The Lotus Eaters’, set in the fall of Saigon and Madeleine Thien with ‘Dog at the Perimeter’ set in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, joined Powers for a ‘War Stories’ panel, one of the ticketed events of WW.
But writers who had dipped pens in the ink of war were all over the place.
Writers' Week director Laura Kroetsch complemented the hard core war writers with a selection of war poets who, it might be said, were ever harder core. Theirs, particularly as delivered through Harry Ricketts, was intensive passion and the crowds were fired, not only with new insights but with the old national emotions which have reverberated since perhaps even the Boer War. We have a history of very mixed responses somewhere between the salute and the tear. Like no other nation, we celebrate losses. How much of its identity does this country attach to its war involvements? How much collateral damage has there been at home? What to do about war? "Just stop," urged historian Ross McMullin.
The new layout of WW has made everything cooler and more spacious. Shade cloth dappled by tree shadows is the prevailing look and, without constraints of tent sidings, the audience seating spans out comfortably. Artful and ingenious arrays of branches and twigs created fresh and aesthetic backdrops for the stages. Even the vast book tent now has become an art object - swathed like a wedding marquee with twig and branch centrepieces like chandeliers.
All the WW writers are represented in there and it is hard to get out without succumbing to a pile of new books after tantalisation at the sessions.
History and biography had a strong emphasis this year and I became deeply immersed in this aspect when given the role of chairing the session of leading Australian biographer Brenda Niall. Her latest book, ‘True North’, traces the lives of the Durack sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. Their family renown lay as pioneer pastoralists in the Kimberly but the sisters were writer and artist respectively - both gaining national acclaim in their fields. It was Elizabeth, however, who created the great controversy by, in her latter years, painting under the guise of an indigenous artist she named Eddie Burrup.
Niall, who also has written biographies on the Boyd family of Australian artists and of significant figures in the Australian Roman Catholic hierarchy (she is now working on a biography of Archbishop Mannix) drew a huge crowd, intrigued not only by her subjects but also by her skill at transforming dense research into arresting narrative. That her thriving full-time writing career has been a post-retirement pursuit was another drawcard.
Interestingly, this was the year that children were given special emphasis at WW and their day was deemed a triumph and something to be expanded in future festivals.
The WW demographic, however, remains strongly people "of a certain age" and various official bleats that a younger crowd should be attracted fall upon the plain reality of the market. Men and women "of a certain age" are the big book buyers and have the time and love to devote to the full enrichments of such an event. They attend in such enthusiastic droves that there really isn't room for another demographic.
It is not possible to do everything at WW. The choices are daunting but rarely disappointing. There were star turns such as biographer Anne de Courcy with her tales of The Fishing Fleet women who sought husbands in India. There was the witty series writer Edward St Aubyn and the trustily entertaining old guard, Tom Keneally. There were a couple of foodies, an anti-foodie, a wine writer, a scientist, some speculatives and some illustrators.
Just one zephyr of rumoured scandal blew through the week's busy sessions and caused a bit of muttering here and there. But, amid the crime and wit, the ‘prose’ and cons of the literary content, the eyebrow-raiser emerged from poet John Tranter. He revealed a singularly peculiar creative modus which involves feeding Baudelaire's poems through a translation program to deconstruct them in order to reconstruct them into new poems. So curious, one wonders why he thought of such a thing. He's one of the most interesting odd bods on the contemporary literary scene and his poetry is wild, wicked and wonderful. He turned out to be a quiet highlight in a sunny Adelaide week of wordiness.
Samela Harris
When: Closed
Where: Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden
Bookings: Free event
