Sydney Writers’ Festival Announces First Four International Guests

04 MARCH 2025

The 28th Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) today revealed a first look at the 2025 program, announcing four acclaimed international authors featured in this year’s 19–27 May Festival. The announcement is in advance of the full program launch on Thursday 13 March.

“This first announcement sets the stage for what promises to be a captivating festival filled with bold ideas and compelling storytelling,” said Sydney Writers’ Festival Artistic Director Ann Mossop.

“Our first four guests—Kaliane Bradley, Ben MacIntyre, Yael van der Wouden and Asako Yuzuki—represent the incredible breadth of contemporary writing. From Booker Prize-shortlisted fiction to investigative history and genre-defying narratives, their works explore identity, resilience, and the hidden histories that shape us.”

Bringing a genre-defying twist to the lineup is Kaliane Bradley, whose breakout novel The Ministry of Time (2024) has been sold in over 20 languages and is set for a major BBC adaptation. Blending speculative fiction with historical narrative, the novel follows a British-Cambodian civil servant who becomes entangled with a 19th-century naval officer brought into the present by a secretive government agency. With themes of identity, displacement, and time travel, Bradley’s debut was one of the most talked-about books of 2024.

For lovers of history and espionage, Ben MacIntyre, the internationally bestselling author behind Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat, and The Spy and the Traitor, will bring his unparalleled expertise in investigative storytelling to Sydney. His latest book, The Siege (2024), provides a riveting account of the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London, chronicling the SAS operation that ended the six-day hostage crisis.

Also joining the Festival is Yael van der Wouden, whose debut novel The Safekeep (2024) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and hailed as one of the most powerful literary debuts of the year. Set in the Dutch countryside in 1961, The Safekeep is an intimate and haunting novel about memory, trauma, and long-buried family secrets in the shadow of World War II.

Closing out this first glimpse at the 2025 program is Asako Yuzuki—one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary authors—whose novel Butter (2024) became an international sensation, winning the Waterstones Book of the Year. Inspired by a true crime case, Butter follows a journalist investigating a woman accused of seducing and murdering men through her cooking. The novel is a gripping, feminist critique of media sensationalism and the expectations placed on women in modern society.

The full Sydney Writers' Festival program is announced on Thursday 13 March 2025. Book lovers are encouraged to sign up to the SWF eNews for exclusive presale ticket access. Visit swf.org.au for more information. 

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