In conversation

The Director and the Daemon: Pitaya Chin in conversation with Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn

The Director and the Daemon follows the director of a big budget Australian sci-fi TV show grappling with the dilemma of corporate sponsorship, and their infatuation with their beautiful but selfish lead star, Kit; and an unnamed young radical struggling to find themselves as their political movement—and the found family derived from it—implodes around them. The two characters’ worlds become increasingly interconnected as they’re forced to make big decisions, and take action, in the face of civil unrest. The Director and the Daemon is a character-driven novel of ideas that is beautiful, funny, provocative, and deeply felt.

“The Director and the Daemon is a soaring, spectacular dance of words and emotions. It’s nothing like I’ve ever read before. Chin conveys the precarity of our times with a humility and wonder that left me in awe. I devoured it.” – Jessie Tu

Pitaya Chin is a Stella-shortlisted (2021) and Barbara Jefferis (2022) award-winning novelist. Pitaya has had work published by New Socialist, Meanjin, Debris Magazine, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Burning House Press and Social Text Periscope.

Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn is a writer living in Tasmania. Her essays and stories have won the Scribe Nonfiction Prize and the Ultimo Prize. She is a previous commissioning editor at Mascara Literary Review and the previous editor of Voiceworks. She is currently working on a novel with the support of Arts Tasmania.

Join Pitaya and Zowie in conversation at the Afterword Cafe. Tickets include a glass of wine or soft drink.