Michelle de Kretser on her new novel, ‘Theory & Practice’: Southasia Review of Books podcast #23

A conversation with the Sri Lankan-born Australian author on unsettling the realist novel form and exploring the messy gaps between ideals and actions: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/michelle-de-kretser-novel-theory-and-practice

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan speaks to the two-time Miles Franklin award winner Michelle de Kretser about her new novel Theory & Practice (Text Publishing / Catapult, February 2025).

How do we reconcile our ideals with the way we live our lives in practice? And what happens when you revere the art but loathe its artist?

A young woman, Cindy, arrives in Melbourne to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. It is 1986 and theory – with a capital T – dominates universities. She looks back on growing up in Sri Lanka before her family migrated to Sydney. She meets artists, activists, students and Kit, who claims to be in another ‘deconstructed’ relationship, yet they become lovers. Meanwhile, she is disoriented when she discovers the problematic ways in which Virginia Woolf, her literary hero, portrayed Southasians in her diaries. 

Theory & Practice is an account of truth and shame, taking up this exploration through the intersections between private and public, personal and political. In pushing the boundaries of what a novel can be, and also asking questions of the act of reading itself, Michelle de Kretser shows without telling the “messy gap” and the “breakdowns” between theory and practice. 

This episode is now available on

Youtube: https://youtu.be/leSIhFzLsyQ

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3RO0Mk8

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3RQBHVM

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