MELBOURNE, 17 July 2022: The Melbourne Writer’s Festival 2022 (8—11 Sep 2022) is gearing up for a big literary experience. Names of authors to attend the festival are being announced. One important name we already know is Mohsin Hamid, the British Pakistani writer who has captured some of the greatest upheavals of our times to critical acclaim.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a singularly vivid exploration of post–September 11 politics and patriotism while Exit West remarkably renders the successive fallout of conflict and the refugee crisis – both novels were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Hamid’s forthcoming release, The Last White Man, follows suit, examining race, prejudice, and nationalism in a world where the skin color of white people everywhere begins to turn dark. Appearing live in person, Hamid shares insight into this lyrical, urgent and hopeful story that asks important questions of racial and social justice, in conversation with award-winning journalist and Culture News Editor of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
It’s a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change: One morning, Anders wakes to find that his skin has turned dark, his reflection a stranger to him. At first, he tells only Oona, an old friend, newly a lover. Soon, reports of similar occurrences surface across the land. Some see in the transformations the long-dreaded overturning of the established order, to be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders’s father and Oona’s mother, a sense of profound loss wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different shading: a chance to see one another, face to face, anew, says penguin.com.au.
The event will take place on Friday 9 September at 6.30 pm at Athenaeum Theatre, 188 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000. LINK for info & tickets.
– Text used from mwf.com.au & penguine.com.au