Unfinished Woman: Robyn Davidson in-conversation

In 1977, twenty-seven-year-old Robyn Davidson set off with a dog and four camels to cross 1,700 miles of Australian desert to the sea. A life of almost constant travelling followed. From the deserts of Australia, to Sydney's underworld; from Sixties street life, to the London literary scene; from migrating with nomads in Tibet, to 'marrying' an Indian prince, Davidson's quest was motivated by an unquenchable curiosity about other ways of seeing and understanding the world. Davidson threw bombs over her shoulder and seeds into her future on the assumption that something would be growing when she got there. The only terrain she had no interest in exploring was the past. In Unfinished Woman Davidson turns at last to explore that long avoided country. Through this brave and revealing memoir, she delves into her childhood and youth to uncover the forces that set her on her path, and confront the cataclysm of her early loss. Robyn Davidson was born on a cattle property in Queensland. She moved to Sydney in the late Sixties, then returned to study in Brisbane before going to Alice Springs to prepare for her journey across the Australian desert. Davidson’s first book Tracks, her account of this crossing, was an international sensation, and was adapted for a film starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver. She has travelled extensively, and has lived in London, New York and India. In the early 1990s Davidson migrated with and wrote about nomads in north-west India. She is now based in regional Victoria, but spends some time each year in India.

Walter Mason, author of “Destination Saigon” and “Destination Cambodia,” has been in love with Vietnam for most of his lifetime, and has been travelling and studying there since 1994. Walter has studied Buddhism with some of Vietnam’s great masters and was a student at the Ho Chi Minh Social Sciences University in Saigon studying the Vietnamese language. He is the Vice President of the NSW Dickens Society and a well-known travel writer and speaker. Walter is also a popular teacher of writing, mindfulness and creativity. As well as leading tours to Vietnam, Walter teaches Cambodian, Vietnamese and Buddhist history.