A Well-Read Woman is a Dangerous Creature
If there’s anyone we want reading recommendations from, it’s our Literature & Ideas curator, Sisonke
Take a peek into what she has in store for 2020! We're starting you off with three appetizers before the main literary meal to come.
Please note - this is the rating scale, 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾 (whoop whoops/5)
The Yield
by Tara June Winch
What’s it about?
The story of a young woman who returns home to bury her grandfather and in the process, uncovers her history, challenges a mining company, and discovers her place in the world.
Read it because...
Winch writes with both delicacy and sturdiness. I completely fell in love with August who - with her shyness and her grit, is a heroine for our times. This is a great Australian novel. Read it with the lessons of Dark Emu in mind.
Rating: Five whoop whoops 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
Solid Air
David Stavanger & Anne-Marie Te Whiu
What’s it about?
A collection of poems written in the long and lively tradition of spoken word.
Read it because...
It features some of this country’s most important writers - *names* you will recognise alongside those you will never have encountered. It is loose-limbed and easy, and then strident and sweaty. It is aptly called a survey - it offers a landscape of the poetry at the heart of a nation in search of itself.
Rating: Four whoop whoops 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
The Palace of Angels
by Mohammed Nassoud Morsi
What’s it about?
An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian carpenter; a husband and wife who create a miracle surfing boy years after giving up on the idea ever having a child; a trio of friends whose solidarity with Palestine knows no bounds.
Read it because...
This is a book about love, though at first it may appear to be a story of ancient hatreds. Slowly, and with big-hearted charm, Morsi creates a world in which love is the only antidote to fear.
Rating: Four whoop whoops 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
Meet Sisonke Msimang – Curator, Literature & Ideas
Sisonke is the author of two books - Always Another Country: A memoir of exile and home (Text Publishing, 2018) and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela (Text Publishing, 2019). She has been published widely including in the Sydney Morning Herald, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Al Jazeera and other news outlets. Sisonke has held fellowships at Yale University, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Aspen Institute. Since moving to Perth in 2014, she has worked with dozens of storytellers through her work with the Centre for Stories in Northbridge. Sisonke will work closely with Artistic Director Iain Grandage to create and curate a program of literature and ideas annually for Perth Festival.