Join us for the 2025 Fryer Lecture in Australian Literature to be delivered by author and literary critic Geordie Williamson.
Date and time: Friday, 3 October 2025 from 6pm to 7pm. Refreshments will be served before the lecture, from 5:30pm to 6pm.
Location: Abel Smith Lecture Theatre (Building 23), UQ St Lucia
About the lecture
In his book The Burning Library: Our Great Novelists Lost and Found (2012), writer and critic Geordie Williamson states, 'Australian Literature can offer no figure more divided or divisive than Xavier Herbert.'
Herbert’s novel Capricornia was published in 1938, winning the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal. HG Wells described it as, 'the best written and finest spirited novel to have come out of Australia.'
Herbert's magnum opus, Poor Fellow My Country, was published 50 years ago, in 1975, to great acclaim, winning the Miles Franklin Award. Described by Randolph Stow as 'an Australian classic', it is the second-longest novel in English after Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, and is one-third longer than Tolstoy's War and Peace. It famously decries Australia as a land 'Despoiled by White Bullies, Thieves, and Hypocrites'.
Xavier Herbert’s novels explore the larger context of Australia’s colonial origins, its historical relationship to Britain and its mistreatment of Aboriginal people.
In this lecture, Geordie Williamson will discuss the successes and failures of Xavier Herbert's efforts to engage with Indigenous Australia, his ongoing legacy, and his complicated dialogue with contemporary writers, including fellow Miles Franklin Award winner Alexis Wright.
The annual Fryer Lecture celebrates Australian literature and the library's important role in collecting and preserving our literary heritage.
The Sadie and Xavier Herbert Papers are held in the Fryer Library.
Geordie Williamson
Geordie Williamson has been chief literary critic of The Australian newspaper since 2008. He is the publisher of the Picador imprint at Pan Macmillan, a former editor of Island Magazine and Best Australian Essays, and author of The Burning Library, a collection of essays on neglected figures from Australian literature. He lives in Hobart. His forthcoming book, On Alexis Wright: Writers on Writers, is published by Black Inc.
Photo of Geordie Williamson used with permission. Credit: The Australian.
