Winner of the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book Award, South East Asia and the Pacific region, Mo Zhi Hong’s The Year of the Shanghai Shark is a quirky coming-of-age novel full of eccentric and unforgettable characters: the elderly poet who writes poems in the town square with a brush dipped in a can of water, the local repair man who has ingenious ways of fixing broken things and the cousin who excels at school but discovers that he has to learn English if he is to pursue his dream of emigrating to America. Winner of the 2007 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Alexis Wright’s latest novel, Carpentaria, is a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce that teems with extraordinary characters – the outcast saviour Elias Smith, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn and the queen of the rubbish dump. Join them in conversation with David Parker as they discuss writing quirky and memorable characters. Part of the Man Hong Kong Literary Festival