SWF 2016 program launched

31 March 2016 Books+Publishing

The 2016 Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) program has been launched and is now available online.

Sixty international writers will attend this year’s festival, which runs from 16-22 May, with UK novelist, poet and rapper Kate Tempest to give the opening address and A Little Life author Hanya Yanagihara presenting the closing address. Other headliners include: Jonathan Franzen, Julian Barnes, William Boyd, Booker Prize-winner Marlon James, US translator of Elena Ferrante’s ‘Neopolitan novels’ Ann Goldstein, The Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins, North Korean escapee Yeomi Park and historian Peter Frankopan. As previously reported by Books+Publishing, writer, activist and feminist Gloria Steinem will also attend this year’s festival.

More than 400 Australian writers will participate in the festival, including Tim Flannery, Anna Funder, Sofie Laguna, Magda Szubanski, George Megalogenis, Stan Grant, Drusilla Modjeska, Charlotte Wood, Elizabeth Harrower, Frank Moorhouse, Tony Birch and Annabel Crabb.

This year’s festival theme is ‘Bibliotherapy’, with professional bibliotherapist and The Novel Cure co-author Susan Elderkin offering personal book recommendations in the festival’s ‘literary healing room’. Artistic director Jemma Birrell told the Sydney Morning Herald she chose the theme after reading Australian author Ceridwen Dovey’s New Yorker article Can Reading Make You Happier?. ‘It’s one of those quirky titles that makes people curious and embodies all the wonderful things books and festivals do,’ said Birrell.

A kids and YA day will be held on 22 May, featuring the Ministry of Noise, the Department of Stuff and Nonsense, and the ‘Royal Institute of All Day YA’ for readers with ‘a voracious appetite for YA books of all genres and their superstar authors’. International children’s authors and illustrators appearing at the festival include Canadian author and illustrator Jon Klassen and UK author Liz Pichon.

Several of the international authors at SWF will also participate in events at Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre, including Jonathan Franzen, Ann Goldstein and Jon Klassen.

For more information, visit the SWF website here.

Category: Local news