Linda Jaivin is an internationally published novelist, essayist, cultural commentator, playwright, specialist writer on China and translator (from Chinese).

Linda’s first novel, the comic-erotic Eat Me became an international bestseller, published in a dozen countries and almost as many languages. Her second novel, Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space, was described by the Washington Post as ‘witty and wickedly satiric. Few writers have skewered the rock and roll world so savagely and accurately and with so much delight’. The Melbourne Age called Linda Jaivin’s third novel, Miles Walker, You’re Dead, a political and art world satire, ‘rapier sharp’. Her next major novel was the darkly comic The Infernal Optimist, labeled  ‘an Australian Catch-22’ by the Sydney Morning Herald. The Infernal Optimist was shortlisted for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 2007 and has been optioned for a film.

Her non-fiction includes the collection of essays Confessions of an S&M Virgin (which opens with an essay written on ‘Nude Saturday’ at Belongil Beach in 1997) and the acclaimed China memoir The Monkey and the Dragon.

Linda’s newest book, A Most Immoral Woman, is her first foray into historical fiction. Set in China and Japan in 1904 and inspired by an incident in the life of the great Australian journalist George ‘Chinese’ Morrison, it brings together Linda’s interests in history, China, foreign correspondence, ethics, eroticism and the character of the female libertine.
Linda lives in Sydney.

In The Program

Wednesday 5th August   10.00am - 4.00pm   Waywood Gallery   WORKSHOP - Making up the truth
Thursday 6th August   1.00pm - 1.45pm   Red Marquee   Writers at large: living in other lands
Friday 7th August   3.00pm - 4.00pm   Blue Marquee   IN CONVERSATION - The view from here: China in literature
Saturday 8th August   3.15pm - 4.15pm   SCU Marquee   Women, love, sexuality: the writing of sex
Saturday 8th August   8.00pm   Pandanus Room   Writers cabaret
Sunday 9th August   10.00am - 10.30am   Red Marquee   READINGS - Morning book readings in the Red Marquee
Sunday 9th August   12.15pm - 1.15pm   SCU Marquee   Not just clogs and shawls: research for historical fiction