“Audrey Magee is one of the most exciting new talents to arrive on the literary scene.”
Fergal Keane

“Floundering is the toughest and most suspenseful novel I read last year”
Robert Drewe, The Guardian

Chairperson: Gail McConnell

Dublin Writers Festival is delighted to introduce two novelists from opposite ends of the globe whose debuts are attracting international acclaim. Romy Ash’s debut, Floundering, has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Miles Franklin Award and numerous other awards. It tells the story of two boys, Tom and Jordy, raised by their grandparents since their erratic mother Loretta abandoned them. But when Loretta suddenly reappears, the three of them embark on an epic journey across Australia’s barren Nullarbor Plain full of unexpected perils.

Audrey Magee’s first novel, The Undertaking, tells the extraordinary story of Peter Faber, an ordinary German soldier on the Eastern front in World War Two, who marries a woman he has never met just to earn himself ten days’ leave. But Katharina Spinell is not the woman he imagined, and as their relationship blooms, Peter and Katharina find their dreams increasingly hard to hold onto.

This event is presented in association with Australia & New Zealand Festival of Literature and the Arts.