Sydney Writers Festival Opening Address.

[caption id="attachment_1433" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Reza Aslan at the Sydney Writer's Festival"][/caption] The festival officially started yesterday evening with the opening address given by Reza Aslan, one of our authors who is discussing his latest book, No God But God. In it, Reza Aslan lays out a definition of the movement behind and surrounding al-Qaeda and the like and the global ideology properly termed Jihadism.  Basically, he’s asking: Why do they hate us and what do they want?  Aslan answer is ‘Nothing.  The Jihadists have no earthly agenda, they are fighting a metaphysical conflict, a theological war’.  So how do we win a cosmic war?  You’ll have to go along tonight to hear how.  It promises to be a fascinating talk and tickets are still available.  Go to the Sydney Writers Festival website to find out more. On Monday night J M Coetzee won the Premier’s Award for Literature in the fiction section for his novel Summertime.  Random House had many other authors shortlisted for awards – David Malouf for Ransom, Glenda Guest for Siddon Rock, Lincoln Hall for Alive in the Death Zone and Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen for The Wolf