The Sydney Readings: Michelle de Kretser and John Tranter

The English Association and Southerly are excited to launch a new reading Series, the Sydney Readings. Join us on Saturday, October 12 for a reading by two of Australia’s most distinguished authors: Michelle de Kretser, author of Questions of Travel, which recently won the 2013 Miles Franklin Award, and John Tranter, author of 20 books including most recently Starlight: 150 Poems. Copies of their books will be available for signing after the reading.

Where: The Footbridge Theatre, University of Sydney, Parramatta Rd.

When: Saturday October 12, 5pm

Tickets can be purchased at: https://sydneyreadings.eventbrite.com.au/
($20/$15 concession and EA members).

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer. She is the author of The Rose Grower , The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which was widely praised by writers such as AS Byatt, Hilary Mantel and William Boyd and won a swag of awards, including the 2008 NSW Premier’s Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal. The Lost Dog was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her most recent novel, Questions of Travel, won the 2013 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the 2013 ALS Gold Medal, the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Premier’s Prize and the Prize for Fiction in the 2013 WA Premier’s Book Awards, and was shortlisted in the 2013 Indie Awards – Fiction, the 2013 Nita B Kibble Literary Awards for Women Writers, and the 2013 Stella Prize.

John Tranter was born in Cooma, New South Wales, in 1943. Since 1970 Tranter has published some twenty poetry collections. His work has regularly appeared in Australian and international literary journals, and has been widely anthologised. His books have won a number of major Australian literary awards. Under Berlin (1988) won both the Grace Leven prize and the Kenneth Slessor prize. At the Florida won the Age Dinny O’Hearn prize (1993). Urban Myths: 210 poems: new and selected (2006) won the Kenneth Slessor prize, the C. J. Dennis prize, the John Bray award, and the South Australian Premier’s award. He has travelled widely, and made regular reading tours to the USA, the UK and Europe throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Regarded as one of the leading ‘Generation of ’68’ poets, Tranter’s work has been influenced by the New York School of poets (ca.1950s–1960s), as well as the French symboliste poets of the nineteenth century. He has also been active as a literary critic and, particularly, as an editor, including the major anthologies, The New Australian Poetry (1979) and The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry (with Philip Mead, 1991). In 1997 he founded the highly regarded online poetry magazine Jacket. His latest book is Starlight: 150 Poems (UQP, 2010).
Photo: John Tranter, photo by Anders Hallegren, 2009.