PUBLIC LECTURE - Merlinda Bobis - "I know a story you don't know" (28 April 2008)

University of Melbourne
School of Culture and Communication Public Lecture

Dr Merlinda Bobis
‘I Know A Story You Don’t Know: The Small Story/The Big Politics’

Monday 28 April
5.30-6.30 pm
Rand Theatre, Medical Building, University of Melbourne

Award-winning writer Merlinda Bobis takes the 'big stories' and the act of telling stories to task. How do we make known the hidden story? How do we write the small, personal story into the large social and political issues? How do we ensure that the human tale is not swept away by the master narratives? She will address these questions crucial to the writing of The
Solemn Lantern Maker (Pier 9, Murdoch Books, 2008), her new novel about child prostitution and the murder of a political journalist in the context of the global war on terror in the Philippines.

Merlinda Bobis has received various awards, prizes and fellowships for her fiction, poetry and plays, among them the Prix Italia for Rita's Lullaby, the Steele Rudd Award for the Best Published Collection of Australian Short Stories, the Judges' Choice Award (Bumbershoot Bookfair, Seattle Arts Festival) and the Philippine National Book Award for White Turtle or
The Kissing (US ed), and more recently the Philippine Balagtas Award, a lifetime award for her fiction and poetry in English, Pilipino and Bicol. Her poetry book Summer Was A Fast Train Without Terminals was shortlisted for The Age Poetry Book Award. Her plays have been performed in Australia, Philippines, France, China, Thailand and the Slovak Republic. The Solemn Lantern Maker is her second novel. Her first, Banana Heart Summer, was shortlisted for the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal. These novels will be published by Bantam US in 2008 and 2009. As a performer for stage and radio, Merlinda works with artists from various
genres. She is a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Wollongong.

This lecture is free of charge and open to all staff, students and members of the public.

>> Copies of her novel will be available for purchase after the talk.