MINING HISTORY’S DEPTHS
Damian Barr and Bart van Es / chaired by Anton Enus

Damian Barr’s You Will Be Safe Here is a heartbreaking novel that links two dark periods of South African history to examine trauma and its terrible echoes through time. Bart van Es delves deep into his family’s history to explore the Dutch response to Germany’s murderous Third Reich in his Costa Award winning The Cut Out Girl. Their meticulously researched, beautifully told stories tread lightly across sensitive truths, powerfully demonstrating history’s resonance across fiction and  non-fiction.

Damian Barr is an award-winning writer and columnist and host of a famed literary salon at the Savoy in London. His first book, Maggie & Me, was an award-winning memoir about coming of age and coming out in Thatcher's Britain. You Will Be Safe Here is his debut novel.

Born in the Netherlands, Bart van Es now lives in England where he is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St. Catherine’s College. An expert on Shakespeare, he has written authoritative texts on Shakespeare’s work and times, including Shakespeare in Company (2013) and Shakespeare’s Comedies (2016). His most recent book is The Cut Out Girl, which won the 2019 Costa Book of the Year.

Anton Enus, a broadcast journalist with more than 25 years' experience, has been presenting SBS World News bulletins since 1999. In his spare time he's run more than 40 marathons and also plays tennis and squash. His favourite authors are Vikram Seth, JM Coetzee and Sebastian Faulks.

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Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden, East Stage, Adelaide Writers' Week
Free