Tim Winton and William Fiennes:

Australian novelist Tim Winton, who has also written short stories, plays, children’s books and non-fiction, is the winner of numerous literary prizes, including the Miles Franklin award, which he has won on no fewer than four occasions. Winton joined William Fiennes at Newcastle University’s Culture Lab to discuss his work and to read an excerpt from his new book, Eyrie.

Winton introduced Eyrie’s protagonist, Keely, who is recovering from a hangover and has a disordered life: ‘he’s hiding, from the world really, at the top of a seedy high-rise and he’s not looking after himself’. Winton’s work is sensually rich evoking the smell of Keely’s unwashed towel and the sounds of his neighbours: ‘his fellow tower dwellers [who] were anonymous to him in the most satisfying way imaginable’. Winton’s writing gives clearly-defined images of his character’s disaffection with life.

There is a strong sense of place in Winton’s work: ‘grace comes from sitting and looking at a place until it reveals itself to you and until you understand it.’ Eyrie is set in a high-rise in Freemantle, Australia. Setting his novel in a vertical building in a land where the environment is primarily horizontal gives Winton’s characters an alternative perspective: ‘you have a different way of looking at the world…people become creatures…they become objects rather than subjects…if you’re out of love with humanity, and you’re looking down on the world… humans look like things’. In the writing of Eyrie, the building came before the characters: place came first.

Environment in the broader sense emerged from the discussion as a key theme for Winton. He talks enthusiastically of being in love with the way we live physically, and of loving the challenge of writing about this. Winton sees environment as a reality that is sometimes forgotten in the current obsession with virtual reality: ‘we often just ignore the underlying material organic reality upon which we all exist. That’s the great fallacy of our time.’

A warm and humorous speaker, Winton is not afraid of showing his humanity or of promoting the simple benefits of kindness. It is easy to see why his work is so highly regarded and why he has won so many accolades. Listening to him speak certainly makes you feel that you have struck gold.