Rich cultural program at SCU for Byron Bay Writers Festival

Two of the most entertaining, erudite and exciting international authors to grace the stage at the Byron Bay Writers Festival next month will also be giving free public talks at the Lismore campus of Southern Cross University.

If you want to be part of a literary conversation traversing life in modern China, crime fiction and creative non-fiction, then taking part in a talk with author Professor Nicholas Jose is for you.

This conversation will be chaired by Southern Cross University writing lecturer and author Dr Moya Costello, at the Lismore campus on Thursday, August 6, in room D-105, from 2pm to 3pm.

Professor Jose is one of the highlights of the Writers Festival, having just edited the newly released Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature (2009).

He has published several acclaimed novels as well as short stories, essays, translations and a personal memoir and written widely on contemporary Asian and Australian culture, having been a former cultural advisor to the Australian Embassy in China.

Professor Jose will take up the Harvard Chair of Australian Studies for 2009-10. He currently has a Chair in Writing with the Writing and Society Research Group at the University of Western Sydney where he continues to mentor emerging writers and to produce his own work.

British-based Pakistani-born author Imran Ahmad will also give a guest lecture at the Lismore campus on Monday, August 10, in room U-231, from 12pm to 1.30pm, chaired by Associate Professor Baden Offord, himself a published author.

Imran’s presentation will weave together various threads from his amazing life – growing up a Muslim in the West, living in a post 9/11 world, following your dream (and making it happen!) and all about his unimagined path to publication.

Somewhat of a larrikin with a great sense of humour, Imran was born in Pakistan and moved to England in the early 1960s at the age of one, growing up in London.

“I was lucky enough to attend a boy’s grammar school, but too lazy to get the grades I needed to get into medical school. Instead, I ended up at Stirling University in Scotland, studying chemistry, learning about Islam, and trying to impress women,” he writes of himself.

“Ultimately I was quite successful in chemistry and became quite knowledgeable about Islam as well, but failed to impress any women – despite having an Alfa Romeo and a microwave oven (quite possibly the only privately-owned microwave on campus at that time).”

Imran was hired into Unilever’s graduate management development program in London and thus began his career in high finance, which later transitioned to management consulting.

His business career took him all over the globe, until the tragedy of 9/11 turned the world upside down.

Imran suddenly discovered that his religion and identity were being hijacked by people with whom he had nothing in common – forces he felt were intent on destroying the very Western values he so much appreciated.

The deterioration in relations between America and the Muslim world drove him to write his book, Unimagined – a Muslim boy meets the West, as a way of re-humanising that troubled relationship. Unimagined went on to be recognized in the ‘best books of the year’ lists of several major newspapers, as well as receiving much acclaim from across the political spectrum.

As part of the Byron Bay Writers Festival, staff, students and alumni are also invited to attend a private lecture by one of the world’s leading human rights lawyers, Geoffrey Robertson QC, on Thursday, August 6, at 11 am, in the Whitebrook Theatre, at the Lismore campus.

Best known for his television series ‘Hypotheticals’, Mr Robertson, who is opening the Writers Festival sponsored by SCU, has been counsel in landmark cases in constitutional and criminal law and has served part-time as a United Nations appeal judge at its war crimes court in Sierra Leone.

The main Festival days are from Friday, August 7 to Sunday, August 9. Festival tickets are available from www.byronbaywritersfestival.com or by phoning Jetset Byron Bay on 6685 6262.

Photo: Dr Moya Costello, who will host a conversation with international author Professor Nicholas Jose at SCU for the Byron Bay Writers Festival. High resolution photo available on request.