Five International Writers You Don't Want to Miss

The 2024 Festival's line-up is rich with stories from near and far but some of the international highlights may have escaped your reading radar, until now. Here are five of the international writers in our Program that you don't want to miss in May.

Alisa Sopova and Anastasia Taylor-Lind

With long, well-respected careers separately and a decade of collaboration together, journalist and anthropologist Alisa Sopova and photojournalist and poet Anastasia Taylor-Lind are a powerhouse duo. In 2020, they began their 5km From the Frontline project with the aim of documenting the less obvious, everyday consequences of the war in Ukraine. Now four years on and with the war still ongoing, Alisa and Anastasia come to the Festival to share their documentary photography and stories from around the world.

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah hadn't received much attention in Australia before he won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. The win shot his books into the sights of larger international audiences than ever and, now, he makes the trip to Australia to discuss his career as a writer of the African diaspora and, especially, his 10th book, Afterlives, set during and after the German occupation of West Africa.

Julian Borger

As an esteemed international journalist with experience covering the Balkan wars and the Snowden files, work which won him a Pulitzer, Julian Borger now has a second book out which delves into his own family's history. A personal advertisement posted in a British newspaper led Julian down a path through his grandfather's and father's fate amongst millions fleeing the Holocaust. It read simply, "I seek a kind person who will educate my intelligent boy, aged 11."

Viet Thanh Nguyen

After publishing a short story collection, a children's book, and his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen's newest book is a memoir that encompasses his life story amongst a larger examining of colonisation, refugees and nationhood between Vietnam and the United States. This Festival will be an exciting opportunity to get to know a huge name in literature of the 21st century.

Celeste Ng

In 2017, Celeste Ng took the world by storm with her suburban drama, Little Fires Everywhere. Three years later it was adapted into a Hulu miniseries staring Reese Witherspoon and spent three weeks in the number 1 spot on The New York Times bestseller list. Celeste's newest book, Our Missing Hearts, explores similar themes to her smash hit including race, identity and family in a dystopian future America.