Sydney Writers' Festival

The history of the Kabul Inter-Continental Hotel is the history of a nation. Built in 1969, it has stood through Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a civil war, a US invasion and waves of Taliban control. Legendary international war correspondent Lyse Doucet arrived at the ‘Inter-Con’ for the first time in 1988. The Finest Hotel in Kabul chronicles 40 years of visits, during which Lyse...

In the latest instalment of Mick Herron’s internationally bestselling series, palms are itching among Jackson Lamb’s cohort of misfit spies. A legendary former spy’s missing book, a state secret and some mischievous blackmail: which underhanded action will rock the carefully calibrated boat of Slough House? An instant  Sunday Times  bestseller&n...

Join Yumi Stynes and Artistic Director Ann Mossop as they discuss the 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival program. The pair talk about the 2026 Festival theme, Show Me The Truth, and how fiction, poetry and creative writing and bring us closer to the truth. Unpack the program and get a glimpse behind the scenes of the Sydney Writers' Festival office. The 2026 Sydney Writers' Festival is out now. H...

‘Cancel culture’ may seem like a 21st century invention sparked by contemporary politics and stoked by social media, sometimes with deadly consequences. However, as philosopher A.C. Grayling illustrates in Discriminations: Making Peace in the Culture Wars , disagreement and public shaming are ancient traditions. Learn how ‘cancel culture’ evolved and what effect it’s...

Detective Inspector John Rebus first hit bookshelves in 1987 as a witty Scottish crime fighter but now the legendary detective is behind bars himself, living a literal locked-room mystery. Midnight and Blue is Ian Rankin at his tense and thrilling best, mixing the police procedural genre with a literary character study of his best-known detective and his home city of Edinburgh. Explore the latest...

In Your Favourites’ Favourites, our most loved writers introduce one of their favourite authors. Bestselling Australian crime writer Michael Robotham speaks with British crime novelist Chris Whitaker about his sensational new thriller, All the Colours of the Dark , described as a “must-read” by favourite thriller writer Gillian Flynn. Over decades, Saint Brown has been hunting th...

Over a masterful career spanning 10 novels, a memoir and various children’s books, Maggie O’Farrell has established herself as a modern literary monument. Her two latest novels, Hamnet , inspired by Shakespeare’s family, and The Marriage Portrait , set in 16th-century Italian court, represent a turn into historical fiction. The former won the UK’s Women’s Prize for Fi...

Undercover agents aren’t just the stuff of stories for writers Jack Beaumont and Ben Macintyre. A French intelligence officer turned spy thriller writer, Jack ( Dark Arena ) has all the insider knowledge to craft true-to-life operations in his novels. Ben ( The Siege ) is an espionage expert and he’s written the definitive account of the siege that put the SAS on the world stage. Hear...

Myths of cryptid big cats stalking the Australian landscape are as old as colonisation. In Dusk , the puma hunting Tasmania’s lowlands has left enough evidence – in the form of dead and missing men – to prove her existence. Two-time winner of The Age Book of the Year and winner of the Voss Literary Prize Robbie Arnott returns with another immanently beautiful story of loss and re...

Zoë Foster Blake is a multi-talented and ambitious novelist, beauty journalist and skincare entrepreneur whose bio is long enough to leave you wondering how she does it all. Channelling that can’t-stop, won’t-stop energy is Kit, a thriving hairstylist and the protagonist of Zoë’s latest novel, Things Will Calm Down Soon . Kit has itchy feet and always wonders what&rsquo...

On 30 April 1980, armed gunmen stormed the Iranian embassy in London and took 26 hostages in what would become a six-day siege. Millions around the world were glued to their TVs as the previously secret SAS planned and executed a rescue mission. Ben Macintyre’s The Siege: The Remarkable Story of the Greatest SAS Hostage Drama recounts minute-by-minute the negotiations, media frenzy and cutti...

As politicians and analysts attempt to manoeuvre with the global superpower, these writers reflect on how the 20th century got the nation where it is today. Bombard the Headquarters!: The Cultural Revolution in China is Linda Jaivin’s account of the ideological quarrels and personalities that underpinned the violent beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Louisa Lim’s Indelible C...

Commonwealth Writers’ Prize winner Catherine Chidgey’s 9th novel, The Book of Guilt, sparked an international bidding war. With undertones of Shirley Jackson and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go , the story’s teenage triplets discover – when the government decides to shut down their home – that some lives are valued more than others in this dystopian 1970s Engla...

This trio of Australian literary talents make writing a family affair. The Moriarty sisters, Jaclyn (the Kingdom and Empires series), Liane ( Here One Moment , Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers ) and Nicola ( Every Last Suspect and The Fifth Letter ) have decades of writing experience between them. Their achievements include international bestsellers, film and television adaptations and p...

Every family has a secret but not every family has a memoirist to reveal it to the world. Writer and former restaurant reviewer Candice Chung’s memoir Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You is a tender account of reconnecting with her family and breaking down the barriers of cultural taboos. Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars is award-winning writer Peter Godwin&rsquo...

Space, in all its awe-inspiring, mind-blowing expanse, is still the final frontier. Its greatness and grandness force us to reflect on our humanity, our existence and our place within the universe. In Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize–winning Orbital , six astronauts contemplate the Earth and its inhabitants from the International Space Station. Ceridwen Dovey’s newest short story c...

After a lifetime of bringing Shakespeare’s female characters to life on stage, multi-award-winning British actor Harriet Walter lends them her pen in She Speaks! .  Shining a new light on classic stories, Harriet writes between the lines of some of Shakespeare’s most compelling characters – from servants to sovereigns. She imagines what Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, Juliet’s nurse...

[Content warning: sexual assault] Feminism has a checkered past, but what can we expect from feminist ideas these days?  CEO of independent news commentary platform Cheek Media Co. Hannah Ferguson ( Taboo: Conversations we never had about sex, body image, work and relationships ), Stella Prize winner and investigative journalist Jess Hill ( See What You Made Me Do , Quarterly Essay 97, Losing...

Rumaan Alam’s Entitlement probes complex racial and social dynamics much like his New York Times bestselling Leave the World Behind , which was adapted into a Netflix film starring Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali. In his new novel, Rumaan introduces themes of wealth and philanthropic aspirations when an ageing white billionaire hires an ambitious young African American woman to help him dis...

International bestselling novelists Liane Moriarty and David Nicholls share the experience of seeing their powerful local stories turn into bingeable television series and films. Liane’s Big Little Lies was the first book by an Australian to debut at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list and, since then, all 10 of her novels have been optioned for screen adaptation. David executive produc...

Wars, coups and economic and climate crises: each new headline can make it feel like the world is suddenly falling apart. But behind many dramatic world events are long-term historical patterns and the rise (and sometimes the fall) of tyrannical and authoritarian rulers. From the Arab Spring to the fall of dictators like Syria’s Assad, find out more about telling these stories from the insid...

After the success of her two best known works, The Secret River , adapted for stage and television, and Restless Dolly Maunder , shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Festival favourite Kate Grenville is still grappling with what it means to be a descendant of colonisation in Australia. Journey through time and place with Kate as she reframes her family’s history in Unsettled:...

Stories about brotherhood are a mainstay of classical writing, from brothers Romulus and Remus to brothers-in-arms Achilles and Patroclus. Ferdia Lennon's award-winning debut tells the story of two unemployed theatre-loving best friends in ancient Sicily who tempt Athenian prisoners of war with food and drink in exchange for recitations of their favourite Greek poetry. From there to a full product...

Colm Tóibín returns to the world of Brooklyn – adapted into a BAFTA- and Oscar-nominated film starring Saoirse Ronan – with the long-awaited sequel, Long Island . Set 20 years after Rose Lacey’s death, Long Island follows Eilis Lacey after an unknown Irishman unexpectedly brings a baby into her family’s midst. Full of longing and regret, the book exhibits the...

Home is a beginning, an origin, a safe harbour, a memory or a dream. Some homes we arrive at, some find us and some we make ourselves.     International bestselling novelist Hannah Kent ( Burial Rites and Always Home, Always Homesick ), academic and writer Abbas El-Zein ( Bullet, Paper, Rock: A memoir of words and wars ) and George Orwell Prize winner Peter Godwin ( Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, L...