Listen Again: Michael Burge in conversation with Catherine Du Peloux Menagé
We closed out 2025 not with a whimper but with a bang, hosting the formidable duo of Michael Burge and Catherine du Peloux Menagé. They held court in the Tom Keneally Centre, making a compelling case that fiction is the most elegant – and lethal – vehicle for social commentary.
The fireside chat was centred on Michael’s latest novel Dirt Trap, a sequel set two decades after Tank Water, which was catalysed by a haunting phone call from the family of the victim of a hate crime.
He posited that where factual reporting is constrained by objectivity, fiction grants one the freedom to unravel the tangled and deeply human skein of what justice means in rural Australia. It seems a novel can deliver a truth that a headline simply cannot touch. Tune into the conversation