There are 2 French and a francophone authors coming to Australia to talk at Sydney Writers Festival.
Sydney Writers’ Festival runs from 29 April to 5 May and includes about 150 events, some paid and some free.
Casey Legler
Saturday, May 4, 2019 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM $35 ($25 concession)
Casey Legler is an artist, restaurateur, model, and a former Olympic swimmer. Born in France to expatriate American parents, Casey grew up in Provence, and went on to swim for France in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The first woman signed to Ford Models to exclusively model men’s clothes, Casey has been featured in Vogue, Le Monde, and Time. The New York Times called their memoir, Godspeed, “Raw and poetic… lean and ferocious.”
Godspeed is the unflinching memoir of athleticism, addiction and survival. It has been described as “raw and poetic… lean and ferocious” by The New York Times. It charts the mismatch between Casey’s public rise and coming of age under extreme circumstances, and their private unravelling through addiction. Casey shares their compelling story of resilience and defiance with Sally Rugg.
Casey Legler also appears in:
Friday, May 3, 2019 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM $20 ($15 concession)
Sally Rugg greets some of the Festival’s favourites for a celebration of queer literature. Join Alexander Chee, Andrew Sean Greer, Casey Legler, Jordy Rosenberg, Holly Throsby, Niviaq Korneliussen and Bryan Washington as they pick from the canon of queer texts, choosing both out and proud and more ambiguous, between-the-lines stories.
In a discussion about texts from The Price of Salt to Harry Potter, the guests reveal their literary crushes, their heroes and the authors who illuminated their paths towards writing.
Adélaïde Bon
Adélaïde Bon is a French writer and actor. She is a graduate of the École supérieure d’art dramatique désigne in Paris, and has acted in state theatres and for television, and devised and performed in numerous shows.
In parallel, she completed five years of training on issues of gender equality under the auspices of a feminist company partnered with the European Association Against Violence Against Women and the Mémoire Traumatique association, led by Dr Muriel Salmona.
She has over ten years’ experience facilitating writing and empowerment workshops for people in situations of hardship. She lives in Paris, and The Little Girl on the Ice Floe is her first book.
Thursday, May 2, 2019 10:00 AM – 10:40 AM FREE
Adélaïde Bon explores a topic that has long fascinated her: the history of witches. Beginning with the witch-hunts of the Renaissance, she considers how depictions of witches have evolved, examining nasty archetypes portrayed by writers like Roald Dahl, and their counterparts as imagined by the likes of Babette Cole. Adélaïde explains how witches have empowered her and how writing itself is like brewing potions with words.
Adélaïde Bon: The Little Girl on the Ice Floe
Friday, May 3, 2019 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM $25 ($20 concession)
The Little Girl on the Ice Floe is Adélaïde Bon’s poised and powerful personal account of the devastating consequences of childhood rape.
The Paris-based writer and actor, who recently featured in ABC’s Foreign Correspondent report on #MeToo in France, examines the aftermath of her attack at the age of nine and how, 25 years later, she confronted the stranger who destroyed her life.
Adélaïde speaks to ABC’s Annabel Crabb about channeling this devastating experience into a bestselling book.
FRANCOPHONE
Friday, May 3, 2019 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM $20 ($15 concession)
Fleeing the Congo as an orphan, Future D. Fidel spent years in a Tanzanian refugee camp before finding freedom in Australia.
Prize Fighter draws on this past to tell the fictional story of a Congolese child soldier forced to fight for the forces that massacred his family before escaping to Australia, where he becomes a talented boxer.
In conversation with Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Future discusses his hope-filled debut novel – based on his critically acclaimed play – that packs an emotional punch.
*You may remember reading about Future D Fidel and his play Prize Fighter as we wrote about it in our Melbourne Festival and Perth Festival articles.
Have you read any of the works by these authors? Who is your favourite French author? Are you attending any Sydney Writers’ Festival events?
