‘After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world’ ― Philip Pullman
Stories lie at the heart of our lives. We need them to understand ourselves, to understand others, to make sense of the world around us. This year, Sydney Writers’ Festival looks at the depth and breadth of storytelling and celebrates the simple pleasure of being told a great tale.
‘To begin at the beginning’, as Dylan Thomas said, is to consider our oral storytelling traditions. In this year’s Festival Opening Address, Daniel Morden, one of Europe’s greatest oral storytellers, reinvigorates this ancient tradition by sharing with us some of the stories he’s collected from around the world and across the ages.
Irish poet, novelist and bird-watcher Dermot Healy, whose work has been lavishly praised by Seamus Heaney, among others, visits us from the wilds of Sligo. Also in Australia for the first time, we have The New Yorker’s literary critic, James Wood, as well as Norway’s most notorious and controversial author, Karl Ove Knausgaard.
When: 20th-25th May 2013
More info: Sydney Writers’ Festival website