The books that changed their lives
Australian storytellers reflect on the enduring power of books at Storyology 2018.
Kicking off Brisbane’s Storyology 2018 festival, a panel of esteemed journalists and authors shared the stories that changed their lives.
Australian author and renowned reporter George Negus said he escaped the religious conservatism of the Bjelke-Peterson era through books.
He said literature shined a light on the conservative attitudes that surrounded him during his adolescence and inspired him to question them.
In particular, the Bible, which was read to him, had the greatest impact on his life as it compelled him to think critically.
“I did not read it but it was important because if I did not intellectually think myself out of the Bible I may not have thought at all,” George said.
“I grew up mostly without religion, my teens were the first time it was really being imposed upon me.”
Hailing from the heart of Queensland’s Bible Belt, Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson’s conservative policies levied rural electorates and propped up the gerrymander that enabled his 19-year premiership.
Under the Bjelke-Peterson government, Queenslanders were exposed to police corruption and violence.
“Queensland was a great place to live but a terrible place to think back then,” George said.
“If I didn’t think myself out of the Bible I may not have ever thought or questioned anything. My reading is erratic to say the least but it is such an integral tool as a journalist.”
The panel ‘This book changed my life’ also included Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor and award-winning authors Trent Dalton and Melissa Lucashenko.
Lenore cited Ruth Park’s autobiographies for changing her perceptions of marriage.
“Ruth Park showed that you could have a marriage built on mutual love of books, writing and literature,” Lenore said.
The Grapes of Wrath particularly impacted Trent, as he drew parallels between his own life and the protagonist, Tom Joad.
Melissa recalled the school readers about Dick and Dora that she found ‘exotic’ compared to the books around her as a child, War & Peace being one of them.
“Growing up part of a refugee and Aboriginal family, the idealised family and antiseptic lives of Dick and Dora proved that the people living in the brick houses were different to me,” Melissa said.
But the book that truly impacted her the most was a story written from the perspective of a Maori woman, The Bone People by Keri Hulme.
Incidentally, all the literature that affected the storytellers the most came from the books they read in their early 20s.
During panel discussions, Lenore urged the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to read the works of Thomas Piketty that centre on wealth and inequality.
Trent also recommended the Prime Minister read anything that represented the marginalised peoples of Australia.
“It is hard to hate someone up close,” he said.
But Melissa pointed out that many Indigenous peoples and refugees are ‘hated from up close’ in Australia.
“My suggestion to Mr Turnbull and Peter Dutton would be to read the report by Gillian Triggs into the children that live on Nauru that have never known freedom,” she said.
The discussion on gross instances of inhumanity around the world ended the panel on a sobering note and gave a taste of the thought-provoking debates that are sure to permeate the rest of the festival.
