‘I want to write about survivors not victims’. Arnold Zable has the audience at the NSW Wrietrs’ Centre totally engaged tonight.
Arnold is touring as part of the Writing Australia touring programme.
His new book ‘Violin Lessons’ a collection of true stories about life, death and the human condition, is inspiring, painful and emotional.
‘A boy walking along a Baghdad street is transfixed by the sound of a violin coming from a balcony and it changes his life. A street boy in war-torn Saigon takes a rare break from his pimping and running errands for the occupying forces and opens up to the writer, recounting how his village was bombed and his family killed. In Poland, Zable meets a woman and her son who yearn to escape from their village, from their crude alcoholic husband/father. They beg Zable to help them … ‘they knew, as well I did, that I would not help them’. On the island of Ithaca a young man, a university student, is lost in a diving accident and his father blames himself for the accident: ‘there are times when I have dived down and not wanted to return … I infected my boy with the same madness’.
…. In Violin Lessons, Zable displays the wisdom and kindness that has permeated all his works – the reason they are so loved.’
Mark Rubbo is the Managing Director of Readings
As the Chair of the Board, I enjoyed welcoming members to this special talk.
Launch of Room to Read at NSW Writers Centre Festival