Simon Tedeschi in conversation with Sheila Ngoc Pham

Join us for an engaging talk by local writer Simon Tedeschi, author of the book Fugitive, in conversation with writer Sheila Ngoc Pham.

In 1917, a young composer writes a suite of twenty pieces for piano, they are short, violent and strange, the music of another world. In 1938, a young Jewish family flees Italy for Sydney, Australia.

In 1942, another family, this time Polish Jews, are nearly destroyed. Half a century later, a young man begins to understand the role these strange visions have played in everything that came before him and all that has come to be.

In his book, Tedeschi straddles the borders of poetry and prose, fiction and fact, trauma and testimony, filled with what Russian poet Konstantin Balmont called “the fickle play of rainbows.”

Don't miss this opportunity to hear from the author and engage in a meaningful discussion about the themes of his book.

This event is a part of Sydney Writer's Festival.

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Simon Tedeschi is one of Australia’s most renowned classical pianists, recipient of prizes such as Symphony Australia’s Young Performer of the Year Award, the Legacy Award from the Creativity Foundation (USA), first prize in the Keyboard division of the Royal Overseas League Competition (UK), and a Centenary of Federation Medal.

As a writer, he has written for a number of publications, including Seizure Magazine, Art Edit Magazine, SBS Feast Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald and many others. In 2023, Simon’s first book, Fugitive, was released by Upswell and subsequently shortlisted for both the Judith Wright Calanthe Award for Poetry and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. In May of 2022, Tedeschi was awarded the Calibre Prize (Australian Book Review) for his essay ‘This woman my grandmother’.

When neither writing nor practising, he reads books and drinks coffee. He and his wife, the painter Loribelle Spirovski, live in Sydney, Australia with their cat. Fugitive is his first book. Find more of his work here.

Sheila Ngoc Pham is a writer, editor and producer working across public health, media and the arts. She writes for a wide range of literary and mainstream publications, and was a finalist for the 2021 Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism. Sheila has held editorial roles at the ABC and co-produced Tongue Tied and Fluent, a five-part series for Radio National exploring multilingualism in Australia, which was awarded an ABU-UNESCO Together for Peace Media Award 2021. She curated MÌNH, the new exhibition at Fairfield City Museum and Gallery focusing on Vietnamese and Chinese diasporic experience, and is currently co-director of the Addison Road Writers' Festival. Sheila lives on Dharug land with her husband and two children.