Lexi Freiman returns to the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival to talk about her new book, The Book of Ayn.

An original and hilarious satire of both our political culture and those who rage against it, The Book of Ayn follows a writer from New York to Los Angeles to Lesbos as she searches for artistic and spiritual fulfillment in radical selfishness, altruism, and ego-death.

Author Lexi Freiman will be in conversation with Michaela Kalowski.

Lexi Freiman is an Australian writer and editor who graduated from Columbia’s MFA program in 2012. Her first novel, Inappropriation, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Miles Franklin Award. She also writes for television.

Michaela Kalowski is an interviewer, moderator & curator for writers and ideas festivals. Highlight interviews include Margaret Atwood, Amos Oz, Michelle de Kretser, Etgar Keret & Stan Grant. She’s curator of ABC RN’s on-air writers’ festival, Big Weekend of Books. Michaela has conducted radio interviews and presented programs across ABC radio and is the co-presenter & co-writer of a two-part family history podcast for ABC RN called Laya’s Way Home.

Join us from 7.00pm for a drink and snacks. Interview beings at 7.30pm.

Event will be held in Sydney Eastern Suburbs venue (details confirmed with booking). Please note that venue space is accessible by stairs only (no lift available).

The book will also be available for purchase on the day by our official bookseller, Gertrude & Alice Bookstore.

Purchase the ticket and book bundle and SAVE!

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 “A furious, jagged and radiant reckoning with the dangers of the manifesto, the mortifications of aging, the mercies and limitations of the comic posture, the job of the novelist and the indiscriminate desecration it demands.” —Alexandra Tanner, The New York Times Book Review

“[A] delightful cancel-culture satire . . . One reads The Book of Ayn with genuine relief that someone has pulled off a novel of jokes at the expense of the most solemnly protected absurdities of our time.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“Lexi Freiman has the qualities of a great comic writer: She’s deeply skeptical, sparing no one, including herself; she doesn’t ruminate at the expense of good timing; and most of all, she understands that the spirit of comedy, like the spirit of art, is risk, that a joke is a leap, and that an uncertain landing is what makes it pleasurable, rousing, even deep.” —Maddie Crum, The Washington Post

“One of the funniest and unruliest novels in ages. It shakes you by the shoulders until you laugh, vomit or both . . . The author torques her contrarianism, past trolling, past knee-jerk philosophizing and past satire, alchemizing a critique of literary culture in all its ideological waywardness.” —Ryan Chapman, Los Angeles Times