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Explore the program
Festival month has arrived! But before the Festival officially kicks off, we want to introduce you to some of the participants who have travelled from near and far to discuss their books, writing and ideas with us. Throughout this Q&A series, get to know favourite and unfamiliar writers and consider the 2025 theme, In This Together.
Catherine Chidgey caught readers' attention with her 2023 novel Pet and she returns with a similarly gripping story in her latest release.
What made you want to write your most recent work, The Book of Guilt?
Like many writers before me, I was thinking about how the world might have looked if there had been a different outcome to WWII. However, I didn’t want to explore a 'what if the Nazis had won?' scenario, but rather consider the implications of a truce – a treaty – that allowed for the sharing of information and research gathered during the war. Also, I’ve always been interested in the nature/nurture question (my first degree was in psychology) – and the identical triplet brothers in the novel allowed me to explore that.
Your writing explores difficult emotions: shame, guilt and jealousy. Why do you return to these feelings in your work?
Because I was raised Catholic…?! But also because those are all the good ones – the ones that propel an edgy story.
What’s on your TBR pile now?
Having adored Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie, I’m looking forward to exploring her earlier books, starting with Too Much Lip. (New Zealanders don’t read enough Australian fiction!) I’ve finally got my hands on Karen Powell’s acclaimed novel Fifteen Wild Decembers, which reimagines the lives of Emily Brontë and her siblings. And I can’t wait to sink my teeth into Katja Hoyer’s Beyond the Wall, which is a history of East Germany that includes letters and accounts of everyday life – just the kind of detail I love.
What is the first book you remember reading?
The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I got it out from our local library so many times that my mother offered to buy me a copy of my own – but I didn’t want one for myself, I wanted the thrill of checking it out from the library, thumbing through the pages softened by so many other little hands – the feeling of a shared story.
What book do you wish you could read for the first time again?
The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I have returned to it several times over the years and it still hooks me right in.
What events at this year’s Festival are you looking forward to attending?
I’m hoping to pack in as many events as I can during my few days in Sydney. Jeanette Winterson on 40 Years of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is an absolute must, and the SWF Great Debate: True Friends Stab You in the Front looks like a blast. I love the drama of prize announcements, so I’m looking forward to hearing who has won the Stella Prize and then I’ll zip straight to Samantha Harvey on her Booker Prize–winning novel Orbital.
What do you hope readers take away from your work?
I hope they feel that they’ve been fully immersed in the slightly off-kilter, unsettling world I’ve created. That I’ve told them an engrossing story that has transported them somewhere new and that they feel they’ve come to know my characters on a human level. I also like my readers to keep wondering about the characters after the final page – to put themselves in my characters’ shoes and ask: What would I do in this situation? In which direction would my moral compass swing?