Christos Tsiolkas

Yeah.

I'm going to say The Tree of Man because it's where I return to him.

And I think The Tree of Man is a novel that you just don't pick up lazily or easily.

But I think within a few pages of that book, you are so, you're in the world.

Reading it is like reading one of the great Russian novels.

So I would say The Tree of Man is where you begin or The Eye of the Storm, which is a great piece of writing.

It's one of the great satires of Australian life, but it's also a wonderful saga of family life.

I would, if I had to choose between the novels, those are the two that I would direct you to.

Oh yeah, because he's, you know, he's really funny and The Eye of the Storm is really funny.

Absolute pleasure.

Thank you.

It's a real pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, look, that was a definitive book for me.

I just remember devouring that book.

It was.

And look, they were incredibly, both of them were very lovely and gracious people.

But I think, as I explain in the book, there was a certain discomfort, partly because the festival had asked me to do a mini curation of the theme of Australia as part of that festival.

And I did want to talk about the complexity of what I think Australia is.

But I had no idea of what Shelton had represented.