IAN McEWAN
Sydney Opera House Talks is our international speaker series bringing you inspiring conversations with some of the world’s most fascinating people.
This podcast was recorded on March 9, 2008 at Sydney Opera House and features Booker prize-winning author Ian McEwan in his only Sydney appearance.
Exploring the boundaries between truth and artifice, McEwan was joined on stage by ABC Radio National's Ramona Koval for a lively conversation.
‘Some novelists resent being corrected on a point of fact in their fiction: they are gods in their own world and can shape it as they wish. Other writers welcome factual accuracy. The borders between truth and artifice can be crossed and re-crossed. In some of my recent work I have been interested in merging the imagined with the 'real'. How loyal does a writer need to be to the facts, and what part does research play in the shaping of a novel?’
Ian McEwan is the author of two collections of stories and ten novels, including Atonement, Amsterdam, Enduring Love, Saturday and, most recently, On Chesil Beach.
Part 1 - McEwan shares feedback received about his novels
(6.7MB)
Part 2 - McEwan explores the relationship between facts and fiction
(10MB)
This recording was originally broadcast on ABC Radio National's
The Book Show
.
TOM STOPPARD
Our international speaker series brings you inspiring conversations with some of the world’s most fascinating people.
This podcast was recorded on December 12, 2008 at Sydney Opera House and featured one of the most important playwrights of the last half-century, Sir Tom Stoppard.
With a prolific and critically-acclaimed career spanning more than 40-years, this was a rare opportunity to see one of the great masters of international theatre in discussion about his life, work and ideas. Tom was in conversation with Andrew Upton, the in-coming Co-Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company, and Geoffrey Rush, one of the finest actors of his generation.
His stage plays include, among others, such seminal works as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, (1966), Jumpers (1972), Arcadia (1993) and most recently the epic trilogy The Coast of Utopia, which in the United States, broke the Tony Award record for a play, taking out best play, best director, best featured actor, best featured actress and several design awards.
He has written for radio, television and his screenplay for the film Shakespeare in Love, won him an Oscar Award.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, he was raised in India and then London. Along with other writers such as Arthur Miller, for more than 40 years he has also been an outspoken supporter of freedom of expression and an active campaigner for the release of authors held in gaols around the globe for their views and writing.
He’s an avid trout fisher, a self-taught man and has been called "Britain’s funniest clever playwright."
Part 1 – Stoppard reflects on being a playright
(7.3MB)
Part 2 – Stoppard talks to Andrew Upton
(4.2MB)
Part 3 – Stoppard and Geoffrey Rush
(4.4MB)
This recording was originally broadcast on ABC Radio National's
Artworks program
.