Melbourne Writers Festival 2017 program launched

19 July 2017 Books+Publishing

The program for the 2017 Melbourne Writers Festival, which runs from 25 August to 3 September, has been announced.

Miles Franklin Literary Award winner Kim Scott will launch the festival with an opening night address on Australian identity. Middle East correspondent for UK newspaper the Independent Robert Fisk will close the festival with an address arguing that the West is no longer safe at home after years of war fought on foreign soil.

Other international guests include novelist Joyce Carol Oates, on her first Australian visit; journalist and transgender rights activist Janet Mock, whose attendance was announced in late June; British journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge (Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, Bloomsbury), who will discuss feminism, class and race; US YA novelist Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give, Walker Books), who will discuss how writing can inspire change; and historian and author Rutger Bregman (Utopia for Realists, Bloomsbury), who will explore the possibility of universal basic income programs and 15-hour work weeks.

Local guests include Stan Grant, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Jane Caro, Omar Musa, Hannah Kent, Julian Burnside, David Marr, and Benjamin Law.

Festival director Lisa Dempster said this year’s festival has ‘armed itself with visionary talent from Australia and around the world to explore the theme of revolutions past, present and future’. ‘Literature has always been a platform for revolutionary ideas and a way to escape the politics of despair,’ Dempster said.

More than 400 guests will appear at the festival. To see the full program, click here.

Category: Festivals Local news