Sydney Writers Festival: Livestream and Local - Bringing the Past to Life

"The past is a foreign country," L.P. Hartley famously wrote. It is also a place readers can visit via masterful historical fiction.

Be transported by esteemed panellists Francesca de Tores (Saltblood), Mirandi Riwoe (Sunbirds) and Abraham Verghese (The Covenant of Water) as they discuss the magic of bringing history to life for contemporary audiences.

Learn how these authors conjure the past to make sense of the present and convincingly intertwine fact and fiction in their prose. Hosted by Kate Evans (ABC RN's The Bookshelf).

About the authors:

Francesca de Tores

Francesca de Tores is a novelist, poet and academic. She is the author of four previous novels, published in more than 20 languages. In addition to a collection of poems, her poetry is widely published in journals and anthologies. Saltblood is her first historical novel. She grew up in Lutruwita/Tasmania and, after fifteen years in England, is now living in Naarm/Melbourne.

Mirandi Riwoe

Mirandi Riwoe is the author of Sunbirds. Her book, Stone Sky Gold Mountain, won the ARA Historical Novel Prize and the Queensland Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her novella, The Fish Girl, won Seizure's Viva la Novella and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her short fiction and novellas can be found in the collection The Burnished Sun. Mirandi has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies (QUT).

Abraham Verghese (pictured)

Abraham Verghese is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the author of books including My Own Country and The Tennis Partner. His most recent novel, The Covenant of Water, was selected for Oprah’s Book Club and has spent six months on The New York Times bestseller list. His 2009 novel, Cutting for Stone, sold more than 1.5 million copies in the US alone. It was translated into more than twenty languages and is being adapted for film by Anonymous Content. Abraham was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2016, has received five honorary degrees and lives and practices medicine in Stanford, California where he is the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Hosted by Kate Evans

Kate Evans presents The Bookshelf on ABC Radio National (with co-host Cassie McCullagh). She has a PhD in history, too many books, and a tendency to over use post-it notes for fear of forgetting a beautifully-turned phrase.