EATALIAN TALKS – A HOME (and a book) IN ITALY

Italy and Australia share a passion for literature.

Eatalian Talks, coinciding with the Sydney Writers Festival in the city, offers a literary event that creates a bond between our two countries.

On Tuesday 19th May, from 12:30 to 1:10 pm, at the Italian Cultural Institute in Sydney, writers Charlotte Wood and Ryan Butta will explore their connections with Italy and Italian literary landscape.

Along with Charlotte and Ryan, we will welcome Miles Gibson, a young Australian filmmaker, writer and arts patron who, with his family, founded “Casa Morphosi”, an artist residency project in Abruzzo, Italy, open to writers and artists who wish to spend a period of inspiration in a medieval village on the edge of the Maiella National Park in the Apennine Mountains.

“Casa Morphosi” will begin welcoming writers as of August 2026. Miles will tell us about the genesis of this project and its aims, which include encouraging a cultural exchange between Australian and Italian writers.

Free admission, reservations recommended on this Eventbrite profile.

A light lunch, Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0 beer, and refreshments will be offered to all participants as part of the Eatalian Talks series.

BIO

Charlotte Wood is the author of seven novels and three books of non-fiction. Her last novel Stone Yard Devotional was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize and named a top-10 book of 2025 by both the New York Times and The Washington Post. It has been praised by authors Anne Enright, Sigrid Nunez, Tim Winton, Karen Joy Fowler, Hannah Kent and Paula Hawkins among others. It is published in Italian as Devozione by Fazi Editore in 2026.

Her previous books include The Luminous Solution, a book of essays on the creative process; the international bestseller, The Weekend; and The Natural Way of Things which won a number of prizes including The Stella Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Her features and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald among others.

Ryan Butta is an Australian author of narrative nonfiction that blends original research, history and literary storytelling. He is the author of The Ballad of Abdul Wade, shortlisted for the South Australian Premier’s Awards Non-fiction Book of the Year, The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli, and Blackbirding, to be published in July, which examines Australia’s 19th- and early 20th-century slave trade.

He is currently researching a new work of narrative nonfiction exploring resistance to Fascism in Italy between 1920 and 1945, centred on writers, exiles and political dissidents and informed by place-based research in Italy.

· 19 May 2026

· From 12.30pm to 1.10pm

· Istituto Italiano di Cultura Sydney

· Level 4, 125 York Street

· 2000 Sydney CBD

· Free admission

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