Christos Tsiolkas

And

I describe it, I think, in the essay as the widest part of England I've ever been to.

Gee, that's pretty wide.

And it was, in a sense, all the questions I had about...

Australian history, British history, the colonial history of our country, the colonial relationship between the two places, all those things were very, very prominent in my head as I was talking at that festival.

And then that question about Patrick White, because I had just very recently returned to Patrick White after a long period of...

not reading him.

And I had read The Tree of Man and I just was astounded, Cassie, by how wonderful a novel that is and how, I think, important a novel it is, not only in terms of our national literature, but I think the literature of the English language.

And I think it is both those things.

And here I was on stage pondering what it means to be an Australian and what it means to be an Australian writer.

And this really good question comes from the floor about what do we think of Patrick White?

That's right.

And it was actually very much in that kind of forceful voice it was asked.

And, you know, the man was, what I think he was, I'm convinced he was doing, was actually asking both a question of Patrick White and wanting to know my opinion of Patrick White.

But he also, through that question, was asking me, what are Australians thinking of their own culture?

He did.

Look, I have for years now eschewed making New Year's resolutions that are about denying myself pleasure.

I just have no Protestant bone in my body at all.

I had made a decision over two years ago on a New Year's Eve night that I was going to read all of Patrick White.

And it was one of the best resolutions I ever made, I think, that I did that.