Last year there was the record-breaking attendances, and now the Sydney Writers’ Festival’s ticket sales have surpassed all previous records.
Sydney Writers’ Festival Chief Executive Officer, Brooke Webb said, “This level of enthusiasm for the 2026 program confirms that audiences are hungry for brave, diverse and relevant conversations — and for spaces where ideas can be explored thoughtfully, publicly and together.”
The theme of this year’s Festival is Show Me the Truth. It’s about how the norms of truth-telling are slipping away, how AI hallucinations have joined misinformation and divergent narratives, and how truth can feel fractured, slippery and polarising.
Of course, over at Irresistible, we would never lie to you, so here’s our Top 20 hits.
Daniel Hahn: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation
What goes into maintaining the language, rhythm and puns? How do you recontextualise immediately recognisable characters? International Booker Prize–shortlisted and International Dublin Literary Award–winning translator Daniel Hahn travelled the world to ask translators and theatre-makers these questions, presenting the answers with insight and humour in If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation.
Alexandra Lapierre: The Very Secretive And Passionate Stella Miles Franklin
Beginning with her incredible debut publication, My Brilliant Career, at the age of 20, the story of The Very Secretive And Passionate Stella Miles Franklin follows Miles Franklin’s journey through suffrage activism in America and cultural salons in Europe, ending with her triumphant return to Australia and her original world of letters.
Tayari Jones: Kin
Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage, winner of the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction, has written another unforgettable story. Her new novel, Kin, centres a complex relationship between childhood best friends, showing how the bonds between mothers, daughters and friends are tested by affluence and inequality, love and desire and a wide world of adventure.
Writing in the Age of Trump
In this panel discussion, three writers, Pulitzer Prize–shortlisted writer of Charlottesville: An American Story Deborah Baker, crime writer and master of Southern noir S.A. Cosby and bestselling novelist of An American Marriage Tayari Jones, share their insights into the state of literature in America’s current political climate and the risks to their creative freedoms.
Tony Abbott: Australia: A History
Beginning with the arrival of the British in 1788, he traces the development of our modern nation-state, including pioneering strides in democracy like the secret ballot and women’s suffrage. Tony explores our heritage, multiculturalism and way of life, alongside his reflections on Australia’s political leaders.
Richard King: Can Technology Really Save the Planet?
Now, enthusiastic politicians, scientists and tech billionaires are investing in powerful technologies of geoengineering, biotech and AI to alter the natural world. While it may appear altruistic, author and critic Richard King argues in Brave New Wild that hubris, motivated by power and profit, is overshadowing the fight against climate change.
Writing About Women, Writing About War
In this panel discussion, writers and journalists reflect on the final work of writer Victoria Amelina, Looking at Women Looking at War, whose writing life was tragically cut short with her death by a Russian missile strike in Ukraine in 2023. Journalist Barbara Demick (Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption and Separated Twins), Finnish Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen (Same River, Twice: Putin’s War on Women) and Booker Prize–longlisted author Maria Reva (Endling) discuss the act of writing about women and war in the past and present.
Michael Pedersen: Muckle Flugga
When a lodger arrives from the mainland, loyalties are tested and life-changing decisions loom. In his highly original debut novel, award-winning poet and Edinburgh Makar (Poet Laureate) Michael Pedersen draws on the myths and legends of the rocky, resistant Scottish landscape to tell a family’s story amid great challenges.
Amitav Ghosh in Conversation
In this special event, Amitav reflects on his career and range of bestselling books including the Ibis trilogy, ground-breaking non-fiction in The Great Derangement and The Nutmeg’s Curse and his newest novel Ghost-Eye, set in 1960s Calcutta.
Melissa Lucashenko: A Writing Life
She has won some of Australia’s most prestigious awards, including the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the ARA Historical Novel Prize. Not Quite White in the Head is the first time her Walkley Award–winning non-fiction and journalism have been published together. Offering criticism and wisdom in equal measure, the essays in this collection are deeply imbued with Melissa’s moral clarity and strong sense of justice.
The Future of Democracy: Democracy After Trump with Jon Sopel
We used to take honourable institutions, humans rights protections and freedom of speech for granted. With autocratic regimes on the rise around the world, these things are no longer guaranteed, even as the the value and importance of democracy becomes stark. Jon Sopel (UnPresidented: Politics, Pandemics and the Race that Trumped All Others) joins co-hosts Nick Bryant (The Forever War) and Rosalind Dixon (The People’s Guide to the Australian Constitution) to consider the impact of President Donald Trump on democracy and how to withstand the forces eroding democracies worldwide, from the rule of tech broligarchs to the autocratic superpowers.
Barbara Demick: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove
In her latest book, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove, Barbara tells the true story of twin girls abducted, separated and trafficked for international adoption under China’s one-child policy. Barbara will dive into this chilling story, painting a rich picture of 2000s China that challenges common assumptions about the quality of life in the East compared to the West.
Luke Kemp: Goliath’s Curse
In Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, Luke Kemp, a research affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, specialising in environmental and climate policy, reframes the history of civilisation over the past 12,000 years to explore why collapse happens and what it means for our future.
Lily King: Heart the Lover
Our narrator is a successful writer who is familiar with the classic tropes of love stories. She lives her life with her husband and children until a surprise forces her to confront the lingering strings of her own romantic past. This is Lily at her masterful best, with an epic story that celebrates literature and young love.
Roddy Doyle in Conversation
From his prize-winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha to The Commitments, which was adapted into a BAFTA-winning screenplay, Roddy’s customary humour and dialogue capture beautiful relationships between lifelike characters, making him a literary icon. His latest novel is The Women Behind the Door, which marks the return of beloved character Paula Spencer.
Flip the Script
These writers made their names as playwrights telling blazing women’s stories, now they turn towards books with added interiority. Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Lally Katz’s debut memoir My Cursed Vagina is a heartfelt look into her life. While Suzie Miller has novelised her international hit play Prima Facie, and Finnish Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen builds on her play Purge with Same River, Twice: Putin’s War on Women to add contemporary research to her work on women’s experiences in Eastern Europe.
What We Know About Gaza
Although the war in Gaza has been livestreamed on social media, international journalists were kept out and Palestinian journalists reporting on the war have been killed in record numbers. Palestinian policy analyst and writer Tareq Baconi (Fire in Every Direction) and Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein (The Palestine Laboratory) bring a wealth of knowledge to understanding what has happened in Gaza and share their perspectives on the war, its impacts and the international stakes at play.
Radical Hope
Art commissioner Anne Beate Hovind manages the artwork Future Library by artist Katie Paterson in Norway, growing trees to print books a century from now. In Nature’s Last Dance: Tales of Wonder in an Age of Extinction, environmentalist Natalie Kyriacou collects stories to illuminate nature and advocate for its protection. Activist Jack Toohey provides the blueprint for social and political change in Better Things Are Possible.
ABC The Minefield Live
With each new election, geopolitical deal and technological advancement, it seems like the ideals of democracy are slipping away. In this special live recording of ABC Radio National’s The Minefield, hosts Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens discuss the state of democracy today with Canadian podcaster and political scientist David Moscrop (Too Dumb for Democracy? Why We Make Bad Political Decisions And How We Can Make Better Ones).
Hiroko Yoda: Eight Million Ways to Happiness
In Eight Million Ways to Happiness, writer and cultural historian Hiroko Yoda dives deep into the spiritual centre of modern Japanese life and the Shinto, Buddhist and Shugendō traditions that have shaped it. Following her own journey of loss and realisation, Hiroko introduces powerful tools for meaning, connection and peace.
Sydney Writers’ Festival
17th – 24th May 2026
The Festival Precinct is located at Carriageworks, Eveleigh with additional events happening around Sydney at Sydney Town Hall, the State Library of NSW and community libraries.
