:00:11. > :00:17.agreed it was time to advance a political process. In many ways
:00:17. > :00:23.Australians have never had it so good. This economy is booming but
:00:24. > :00:35.is it a country at ease with itself? Well, not according to my
:00:35. > :00:46.guest today, the Australian novelist Cristos Chalkes. His book
:00:46. > :01:04.The Slab depicts a suburban Australia - he is ashamed at the
:01:04. > :01:09.direction modern Australia has Welcome. A pleasure thank you.
:01:09. > :01:19.Australia was once dubbed the lucky country but in your fiction it
:01:19. > :01:26.seems like the unhappy country. Is that fair? I'm hesitating because
:01:26. > :01:30.for me it is a bizarre place, Australia. You know, we are doing
:01:30. > :01:36.this interview still in the middle of the global financial crisis when
:01:36. > :01:41.I was in Europe last year I was in Greece so I saw the real effects of
:01:41. > :01:46.what that crisis means, the insecurity and anxiety that comes
:01:46. > :01:52.from that. So you look at a country like Australia which has been
:01:52. > :01:56.sheltered from that crisis because of a whole entry kit history of
:01:56. > :02:01.politics to do with our relationship with Asia so we are
:02:01. > :02:06.the wealthiest we have service ever been. Australians have never had it
:02:06. > :02:11.so good the early? When I started to write The Shraipt was trying to
:02:11. > :02:15.make sense of to things happening. One I come from a particular
:02:15. > :02:22.background which I'm really proud of but in writing in being educated
:02:22. > :02:27.I just feel like I'm no longer - I can no longer claim a right to a
:02:27. > :02:30.working class background that my parents come from. Because they
:02:30. > :02:37.were working class immigrants from Greece? Yes, part of that massive
:02:37. > :02:42.immigration that came to Australia Post-World War II from southern and
:02:42. > :02:48.eastern Europe. So I'm very conscious of that heritage and how
:02:48. > :02:52.my fortune is the dependent on the personal history of my parents but
:02:52. > :02:57.I was aware that impart of the middle-class, you know. I had not
:02:57. > :03:00.really in my previous work dealt with what that meant. Because that
:03:00. > :03:07.is what I picked up from the book and from some of the other writings
:03:07. > :03:11.that I have seen of yours. You seem to be uncomfortable with the
:03:11. > :03:18.middle-class you have entered. One phrase that stuck in my mind from
:03:18. > :03:26.you, you talk about the crevicees and the dark spaces of the
:03:26. > :03:31.Australian suburban landscape. Australians tell ourselves we are
:03:31. > :03:36.larrikins that she will be right mate that we are accepting and over
:03:36. > :03:45.the '90s and the early part of the 21st century I thought we were the
:03:45. > :03:52.most selfish that I have ever seen. We are the most grasping and greedy
:03:52. > :03:58.and xenophobic and unkind that we have ever been. I think it is very
:03:58. > :04:03.true. These are the people you life among. I resist the idea of that
:04:04. > :04:10.being part of a people, many part af nation is that you cannot see
:04:10. > :04:15.yourself clearly. Growing up in a migrant household there was also
:04:15. > :04:22.the romance of a place called Greece and a place called Europe
:04:22. > :04:28.you are a part of and I could escape to that. It put two or three
:04:29. > :04:33.years of a visit to Europe to put that at rest. I wanted to really
:04:33. > :04:39.have a look at who we are, what we have been doing, what we have
:04:40. > :04:45.become and that is where The Slap emerged from, that is what I wanted
:04:45. > :04:48.to write. I think it the is a harsh thing to say but not untrue. I love
:04:48. > :04:55.reading contemporary fiction and I read a lot of it, but I do not
:04:55. > :05:03.think I have ever come across a book where so many of the voices
:05:03. > :05:05.through whom the story is developed and told are so utterly unlikeible,
:05:05. > :05:12.even despicable. A lot of people have said that about the characters
:05:12. > :05:19.in the book. I do not think that. I certainly do not think that about
:05:19. > :05:23.the old man in the book. Yeah, he... He is the Greek father of one of
:05:23. > :05:29.the main characters. He himself appears quite a lot but it is
:05:29. > :05:35.really his son who is the central person. Yes, in the book. But he
:05:35. > :05:42.has, yes, incredibly sexist attitudes. Most of the men in the
:05:42. > :05:54.book are mosogonist? I would say one of the things about being a man
:05:55. > :06:01.in the culture is being aware of the your slide into mosogony, of -
:06:01. > :06:05.it is not only on a level of making sexist comments or assumptions, it
:06:05. > :06:11.is actually fear or hatreds of women. Having to be conscious of
:06:11. > :06:16.that. The violence in the book and a lot of the sex is written as some
:06:16. > :06:22.critics have said in quite a pornographic way. Was that
:06:22. > :06:26.deliberate? Yeah. I was really surprised by the poverty of a lot
:06:26. > :06:38.of that criticism. I was really surprised they would not
:06:38. > :06:42.acknowledge that porn ago if I is one of the ways -- porn - I can not
:06:42. > :06:47.avoid porn, it is on the internet, on the screens, it has infected - I
:06:47. > :06:51.use that word - the way I look at sex. The Slap is not isolated from
:06:51. > :06:55.my other work I said from the beginning and maybe that has to do
:06:55. > :07:03.with with being homosexual and growing p in a culture like this.
:07:03. > :07:11.So on the one hand a very traditional Greek culture where it
:07:11. > :07:15.felt, it just felt impossible to be a faggo t to be really blunt.
:07:15. > :07:21.you are honest that is the way your own father and family would have
:07:21. > :07:27.viewed a homosexual, as a fag not? Yes. I remember coming -- faggot.
:07:27. > :07:31.Yes, I remember coming out to Mum on the cusp of my 20s, and I had
:07:31. > :07:37.been living away if home for a while an she just was trying to
:07:37. > :07:42.understand why I had cult myself off from the family -- cut. And I
:07:42. > :07:46.had to turn to her and say "Look, I'm gay" but I did not know the
:07:46. > :07:52.Greek word for gay and she did not know what the word gay meant back
:07:52. > :07:57.there so I had to say I was a fag. That was the only language hi for
:07:57. > :08:03.it. In saying that I do not - you know, I think my parents have made
:08:03. > :08:08.remarkable journey as I V I think there is great dignity an courage
:08:08. > :08:12.in their unrelenting support for me, but there was no way - I did not
:08:12. > :08:17.understand how to be a man and be gay. It just didn't make sense to
:08:17. > :08:23.me. That was a long struggle. Did you think it is because you are a
:08:23. > :08:29.gay Australian that you are able to take a particular maybe a more
:08:29. > :08:35.detached view of what is going on with the majority of Australian
:08:35. > :08:39.hetrosexual man hood? Because of my sexuality and I'm talking 25 years
:08:39. > :08:48.ago, because of my sexuality and because of being, you know, to be
:08:48. > :08:54.blunt a wag in this culture, an outsider in this culture. That gave
:08:54. > :09:01.me an outsider perspective an insider-outsider perspective and I
:09:01. > :09:10.think that is extremely valuable for a writer. You said to me I am
:09:10. > :09:15.wo g. What on earth do you mean by that? That was the derogatory term.
:09:15. > :09:18.Even though they were olive-skinned immigrants from the Mediterranean?
:09:18. > :09:23.Yes. You have to understand that there is for a long time in this
:09:23. > :09:28.country - and I was born at a time when it had not gone away - there
:09:28. > :09:36.was a white Australia policy. Australia was going to one, we were
:09:36. > :09:39.going to deny a racial history built on the history of the
:09:40. > :09:45.Indigenous people here. That is one of the things why race politics
:09:45. > :09:49.continues to be so difficult and confronting for Australia, as we
:09:49. > :09:55.still have not resolved that in any meaningful way. I look across to
:09:55. > :09:58.New Zealand u I'm not trying to be romantic about it but they have a
:09:58. > :10:03.better relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
:10:03. > :10:09.Kevin Rudd's government issued the formal apology, you talk to young
:10:09. > :10:14.Australians on the streets and they will say that it feels different
:10:15. > :10:19.now. This government has recommitted itself to a specific
:10:19. > :10:25.multicultural strategy for this country. It has. Just now after a
:10:26. > :10:31.long period of making the word "Multicultural" a very, very dirty
:10:31. > :10:36.word by parties, by the Liberal and the Labor parties in Australia had
:10:36. > :10:39.straight away. I just want to be clear - are you suggesting, and it
:10:39. > :10:43.feeds into my original question about your view of Australia,
:10:43. > :10:48.whether it is an angry and unhappy country? Are you saying that
:10:48. > :10:54.Australia today is still dogged by racism? Think Australia is still
:10:54. > :11:02.dogged by fear of the other and racism, yes. I think your country
:11:02. > :11:08.is, Stan. I know Greece is. I mean, you know, what was the major thing
:11:08. > :11:14.I heard from Greeks when I was over there? The fear of the immigrant.
:11:14. > :11:17.The difference is that Greece obviously is an ancient culture
:11:18. > :11:23.with an ancient tradition. Britain is a pretty old established culture
:11:23. > :11:28.too. This is a country built by immigrants. In a way it is more of
:11:28. > :11:34.a paradox for an outsider, a stranger for you to sit before me
:11:34. > :11:38.in Sydney saying "This country is dogged by racism when it is full of
:11:38. > :11:42.immigrants". Everybody has come from somewhere except when it is
:11:42. > :11:46.the Aboriginal community. I - think it is a contradiction because
:11:46. > :11:54.it is real. I will be more harsh about Australia because I live
:11:54. > :12:00.there and it is a place I will die so I want to stake my claim in this
:12:00. > :12:11.country. As a man living here, um, I have my own observations to make
:12:11. > :12:17.about other places in the world. Um, but I do fear that racism is a side,
:12:17. > :12:22.as I said before, that we have not felt properly in this country.
:12:22. > :12:26.it is a tough place to be inside your own country and because you
:12:26. > :12:34.have said because of your sexuality and your ethnicity to be an
:12:34. > :12:38.outsider from the very get-go and then to be so public in your
:12:38. > :12:45.critique of the way society works? It makes you very lonely, isolated?
:12:45. > :12:49.I do not feel like that at all. I feel I'm more part of my life, I
:12:49. > :12:53.have such a solid relationship, such a solid family, such a solid
:12:53. > :13:01.network of friends. So I think maybe that gives you a certain
:13:01. > :13:08.freedom to express things. I think it is important to keep demanding
:13:08. > :13:15.of Australians that we get better and get better at dealing with our
:13:15. > :13:20.racial and immigrant history. One, because, yes, you talk the people
:13:21. > :13:23.on the streets and you say that we are better at dealing with
:13:23. > :13:30.Aboriginal people and Aboriginal history. Yes, Kevin Rudd made the
:13:30. > :13:34.apology and I was at the Aboriginal Advancement League in Melbourne
:13:34. > :13:39.when that apology was made and I will never forget that day and how
:13:40. > :13:45.important and moving it was. But the reality is on the ground
:13:46. > :13:50.Aboriginal people are dying much younger than we white Australians
:13:50. > :13:55.are dying. They are still living in unbelievible squalor and poverty.
:13:55. > :14:02.Those things have not changed. I was just coming to the sense of
:14:02. > :14:08.view I was reading that over half - they were doing a poll and over
:14:08. > :14:12.half of the population of Sydney express racism against Muslims and
:14:12. > :14:16.they do not want Muslims to come into the country. So things have
:14:16. > :14:22.changed. Things always do change. I think there was a slide backwards F
:14:22. > :14:28.you had spoken to me in the early '90s I would have been much more
:14:28. > :14:35.buoyant about this country called Australia. I come back from Europe.
:14:35. > :14:38.Thank God I'm here. At that time Europe to me was a nothing in lots
:14:38. > :14:42.of ways it still is obsessed with class in a way we do not have it
:14:42. > :14:47.here. That is probably one of the things I do really like about this
:14:47. > :14:51.country. But I thought that yes, we were multicultural, I thought we
:14:51. > :14:56.were an immigrant nation that was proud of that heritage. Then in 15
:14:56. > :15:01.years that all evaporated or that is what it seemed like to me and
:15:01. > :15:04.that its what I wanted to write about. It is a way where your book
:15:04. > :15:08.overlaps with current reality because what we see in the
:15:09. > :15:13.Australian political debate is that race has become absolutely the most
:15:13. > :15:17.heated, divisive issue the plate call agenda and on the right wing
:15:18. > :15:21.of Australian politics we have shadow Cabinet ministers railing
:15:21. > :15:26.against government tax dollars being used to pay for the funerals
:15:26. > :15:32.of those people killed in the Christmas Island boat smash. We
:15:32. > :15:38.have other figures in. The Opposition Coalition saying Islam
:15:38. > :15:43.is a totalitarian ideology. Do you worry about what you are hearing
:15:43. > :15:55.right now in the political debate? Just the other week when there were
:15:55. > :16:03.the images of the refugees burying their dead and then I heard, you
:16:03. > :16:09.know, a Liberal politician saying that we should not be paying to fly
:16:09. > :16:12.those people to the funeral. And you know what, I felt such a
:16:12. > :16:18.disgust and hatreds for a moment for this country. I just wanted to
:16:18. > :16:24.be out of here. Maybe growing up in the shadow of racism means that I'm
:16:24. > :16:31.just - maybe I'm overly aware of it. Maybe I'm too quick to see it. That
:16:31. > :16:36.is possible. It think that is possible, -- I think that is
:16:36. > :16:41.possible. But I really will the fight that moment of hatreds. I
:16:41. > :16:45.really had to fight saying I am disgusted with my country. I don't
:16:45. > :16:49.want to live in that feeling because that is the only place I
:16:49. > :16:54.have. I cannot go back the geese or Europe. What about reception for
:16:54. > :17:00.the book which has been termed by the ABC the main broadcaster, state
:17:00. > :17:06.broadcaster in Australia, has been turned into an eight-part
:17:06. > :17:12.television fiction, sold enormously well. What kind of reaction has it
:17:12. > :17:20.prompted in this country? One of the things I'm really conscious of
:17:20. > :17:26.is a sense of relief that someone is describing an urban Australia
:17:26. > :17:34.that actually looks and sounds like Australia, the Australia we live in,
:17:34. > :17:39.not some kind of fantasy of London or New York or Paris, that is
:17:39. > :17:47.Australian, that you know, Australians are people like me. Um,
:17:47. > :17:54.I think that partly explains, not completely, but partly explains
:17:54. > :17:58.some of the success of the book. I think there is a relief. The book
:17:58. > :18:05.describes a new middle-class that is as much Greek as it is Scottish,
:18:05. > :18:12.that is as much Lebanese as it is English, that is as much Chinese as
:18:12. > :18:17.Welsh. I think that is the reality of the world I do move in.
:18:17. > :18:22.Melbourne almost feels like a country in itself sometimes. Like I
:18:22. > :18:27.feel quite comfortable in Melbourne. And maybe I think there are spaces
:18:27. > :18:33.in Australia which are that old Australia. And I think some of the
:18:33. > :18:38.resentment that has been expressed about the book, about some of the
:18:38. > :18:43.anger expressed about that book has to do with the fact that old
:18:43. > :18:47.Australia does not recognise itself enough. I make no apologise for
:18:47. > :18:53.that. Do you want to reach out to that old Australia? Do you want to
:18:53. > :18:57.reach out to them, to find a way of communicating in with them?
:18:57. > :19:01.would be an amazing hubris really to think that I can do that. What
:19:01. > :19:04.gives me pleasure is writing so that's what I'm going to dofplt and
:19:04. > :19:09.if I have any effect it come only come through the writing. I mean a
:19:09. > :19:16.lot of people read The Slap and think it is really vulgar. I mean
:19:16. > :19:22.I'm not interested in these people. And what I'm hoping is that there
:19:22. > :19:28.will be some audience out there that will respond to the honesty in
:19:28. > :19:34.the book. It strikes me that the two characters who are most decent,
:19:34. > :19:39.who offer the most hope in your book, are the to youngest main
:19:39. > :19:44.characters, the teenagers, Connie and Richie. Is that because you
:19:44. > :19:49.invest for this country itself, a huge amount of hope in the coming
:19:49. > :19:54.generation? Is that where you see Australia's best hope? In the main
:19:54. > :20:00.I see - I do get hope from seeing how young kids interrelate with one
:20:00. > :20:06.another, that they take a multicultural, multi-ethnic life
:20:06. > :20:09.for granted and they live it on a street level, on a home level, on a
:20:09. > :20:14.friendship level, on a love level in a way that I think was not
:20:14. > :20:23.possible for me in my generation. That in short is the Australia you
:20:23. > :20:27.want to believe in? Right. They all have a my generation self respect
:20:27. > :20:31.that is something I respect about the a generation younger than
:20:31. > :20:42.myself. Are you writing new fiction about contemporary Australia?
:20:42. > :20:52.in the middle of a novel. Touch wood, her you talk about - I would
:20:52. > :21:01.be an idiot to - I would be an idiot to complain about the success.
:21:01. > :21:06.It is that little dream that I have had for so long. I thought you were
:21:06. > :21:10.going to say something negative about success? Just that you can
:21:10. > :21:15.get quite busy! I mean, I have been writing for a long time now and I
:21:15. > :21:18.really did not sit down to write a best seller. That was not what I
:21:18. > :21:28.wanted to do. It took me a long time to start this next novel
:21:28. > :21:32.because I was scared. I was scared about what were my - what were my
:21:32. > :21:37.motives, you know? Was this a book I wanted to write because I wanted
:21:37. > :21:42.to write this book or was it because I wanted to follow The
:21:42. > :21:46.Slap? Suddenly I had a blueprint for a best seller. To put it
:21:46. > :21:51.bluntly, your first book haves not sold terribly well. Some people
:21:51. > :21:56.have loved them but they have not sold very well. Suddenly you have a
:21:56. > :22:00.best seller that goes international. And I wonder if there is a part of
:22:00. > :22:08.you that says "I have to repeat that I have to get the sales even
:22:08. > :22:14.higher, I could become a major international literary figure"?
:22:14. > :22:19.must have heard this. There are moments when row sit at the desk
:22:19. > :22:24.writing and you think "My God, I'm genius, I'm up there. No one is
:22:24. > :22:29.writing like this!" and then just as often you think "I'm going to be
:22:29. > :22:33.revealed for the fraud I am any moment now". The next book is about
:22:33. > :22:38.a swimmer who fails in his Olympic dream and part of that is because I
:22:38. > :22:46.want to deal with those questions of failure and success. Is there a
:22:46. > :22:50.fear that you might be the writer who strives, has some success, then
:22:50. > :22:54.fails? Yes, of course there is. Of course there is. That will go away.
:22:54. > :23:00.I doubt it ever goes away for anyone no matter how successful