Authors offer notes of hope among the shadows of global gloom

“This is the most terrifying situation in the world I can think of in my adult lifetime,” said Tom Baldwin. “It’s going to cast a shadow over every single one of us.”

I peered nervously through the tree canopy to the sunshine bathing Adelaide Writers’ Week. Where was that shadow? Baldwin, author of a biography of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, acknowledged it was “weird” to say this “in this fantastic country in this fantastic city”.

“We should enjoy it while it lasts. Because don’t forget that outside, the world is a really dark and sorry place at the moment.” So dark that he couldn’t sleep, worrying his 19-year-old son might be called up to fight a war.

Tim Winton, seen here at Coral Bay in Ningaloo, says he finds hope beneath the water.Credit: Violeta J Brosig / Blue Media Exmouth

That was typical of the gloom filtering through the balmy surroundings of this year’s festival in the park. Time and time again, we were warned about Gaza, Ukraine and other world hotspots. About the unheeded lessons of history and the plight of immigrants, women and indigenous peoples. About the age-long history of antisemitism. The greed of corporations. Grief, public and private. The accelerating pace of climate change. And above all, about “the Manchurian candidate in the White House”, as Tim Winton put it.

The moderators, looking increasingly desperate, pleaded with the speakers for a note of hope.

And yes, plenty of such notes were sprinkled through various panels and conversations. One consolation that kept coming up was wonder: as Julia Baird said, “the incredible soothing power of being small” when looking at the stars or a sunset or a great work of art.

Winton found revived hope underwater, in the gaze of a humpback whale, which can last for 20 minutes: “You feel looked into, that sense of connection … one lovely piece of good news in an otherwise flawed world.”

Historian Bettany Hughes, talking about the seven wonders of the ancient world, also thought we should try to bring more wonder into our lives. “If you wonder, you engage. If you engage, you understand. If you understand, you care. If you care, you love.”

Rachel Kushner seeks the modest wonder of monarch butterflies in her garden: “I take small puffs of joy every day.”

Another route to hope was to converse with people who have very different opinions from yours. “You have to listen to people, even if you don’t agree with them,” said Wesley Lowery, who chronicled the rise of white supremacist violence in his book American Whitelash. “We can’t persuade if we don’t listen.”

Hanif Kureishi, over Zoom, took heart from personal acts of kindness after his 2022 accident.Credit: Dave Benett/Getty Images

Tea Obreht thought we were facing not so much one huge apocalypse as a number of smaller ones: “We have to muddle through in small organised-community ways, trying to turn our neighbours back to the light.”

Writers also took heart from personal acts of kindness. Hanif Kureishi, speaking on Zoom from Britain, has had multi-limb paralysis since he fell from a chair and broke his neck, but he continues to write via dictation.

“On TV you just see people doing their best to ruin each others’ lives,” he said. But in hospital, friends and strangers visited him every day. They brought him meals, fed him, gave him massages, brushed his hair, and shared “the most incredible conversations”.

Humour was a good defence. Political sketch writer John Crace enjoyed skewering former British PM Theresa May: “She was really a piece of 1980s faulty Amstrad software, so I called her the Maybot. It took off. Even her cabinet called her that.”

“If you want to meet new people, it’s a good idea to break your neck,” Kureishi joked. “The world is a dark and dangerous place. But it’s funny.”

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