In cooperation with the Embassy of Italy in Australia

Best-selling Italian author Paolo Giordano will be in conversation with Marco Lazzarino on his semi-autobiographical novel Tasmania, which captures the fear, anxiety, wonder, and beauty of this time of uncertainty and upheaval, exploring how we can create and maintain relationships with other people when it feels increasingly difficult to connect.

After losing the future imagined for himself, a writer, Paolo sets out in late 2015 in search of connection and purpose at a tipping point with climate change and global conflict, in this breathtaking novel from the Strega Prize–winning author of The Solitude of Prime Numbers.

Paolo immerses himself in work, traveling to Paris to report on the UN Climate Change Conference in the wake of terrorist attacks that shook the world. His journalism dovetails with a book he hopes to write on the atomic bomb and its survivors, a growing obsession that will take him to cities across Europe and ultimately Japan.

Along the way, Paolo interacts with a vibrant cast of characters, each struggling to find their own Tasmania, a safe haven in which to weather the coming crises—global warming, pandemics, authoritarian governments, and wars. He develops a friendship with a brilliant, opinionated physicist, who followed the scientific path Paolo had abandoned, and who will test Paolo’s loyalty and values.

“A resonant story with incisive prose, Giordano brings order to the messy tangle of Paolo’s emotional turbulence and political convictions. This soars.” — US Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Ever since the publication of his debut novel, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, Paolo Giordano has stood out at the forefront of international literature” André Aciman

Paolo Giordano is also the author of the critically acclaimed books, Like Family and The Human Body. His international bestseller, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, a coming-of-age novel and love story, has been translated into more than 40 languages . Paolo Giordano has a PhD in particle physics from the University of Turin and is now a full-time writer living in Italy

Dr Marco Lazzarino is Scientific Attaché at the Italian Embassy in Canberra. Marco has a degree in Physics from the University of Genoa (IT) and PhD from the University of Groningen (NL).

The vote of thanks will be given by Nobel Prize winner and ANU Distinguished Professor Brian Schmidt AC FRS FAA FTSE.

This event is in association with Harry Hartog Bookshop. Books will be available for purchase. Pre-event book signings will be available from 5.30pm and again after the event.

Additional information:

Registration is required for this event.

Accessible parking spaces are available around campus should you require them.

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A podcast will be made available after the event.

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Contact the host of Meet the author- Paolo Giordano