In conversation with Richard Fidler

Listen to this ANU/Canberra Times Meet the Author conversation on Experience ANU SoundCloud channel

Award-winning author, Richard Fidler, will be in conversation with Alex Sloan on Richards new book, The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, the story of the medieval wanderers who travelled out to the edges of the known world during Islam's fabled Golden Age-an era when the caliphs of Baghdad presided over a dominion greater than the Roman Empire at its peak, stretching from North Africa to India. An empire that was the largest the world had ever seen.

When Richard Fidler came across the account of Ibn Fadlan - a tenth-century Arab diplomat who travelled all the way from Baghdad to the cold riverlands of modern-day Russia - he was struck by how modern his voice was, like that of a twenty-first century time-traveller dropped into a medieval wilderness. On further investigation, Fidler discovered this was just one of countless reports from Arab and Persian travellers of their adventures in medieval China, India, Africa and Byzantium. Put together, he saw that these stories formed a crazy-quilt picture of a lost world.

In a flourishing culture of science, literature and philosophy, the citizens of Baghdad were fascinated by the world and everything in it. Fidler expertly weaves together beautiful and thrilling pictures of a dazzling lost world with the story of an empire's rise and utterly devastating fall.

Writer-broadcaster, Richard Fidler, is the author of the bestselling books The Golden Maze and Ghost Empire, and co-author of the bestselling Saga Land with Kári Gíslason. Richard Fidler presents 'Conversations', an in-depth, up-close and-personal interview program. 'Conversations' is broadcast across Australia on ABC Radio and podcast all over the world to millions of listeners.

Alex Sloan AM, the 2017 Canberra Citizen of the Year, is a regular conversationalist for ANU Meet the Author events. Alex is a Director and Deputy Chair of Australia's progressive think-tank, The Australia Institute, Director of The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and Director and Deputy Chair of the ACT Writers Centre.

The vote of thanks will be given by Jeanne Ryckmans, former television presenter, producer and documentary maker for SBS Television, author and current literary agent with Cameron's Management. Jeanne directed the Canberra Writers Festival from 2020- 2022.

This event is in in association with the Friends of the ABC and Harry Hartog Bookshop.. Books will be available for purchase on the evening in the Cultural Centre foyer. Pre-event book signings will be available from 5.30pm, and available again after the event.

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Apodcast will be made available after the event.