Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka. She lives in Warrane/Sydney on unceded Gadigal land. An honorary associate of the English Department at the University of Sydney, she has won several awards for her fiction. Theory & Practice is her seventh novel.
My defining food moment in Melbourne was when Phantom India, the first Indian restaurant in Melbourne, opened in Swanston Street, Carlton, in 1978.
My favourite depictions of Melbourne in literature are Monkey Grip by Helen Garner, Common People by Tony Birch, Fitzroy: The Biography by Pi O and The Bridge by Enza Gandolfo.
And when it comes to describing food, cooking and dining, my go-to authors are MFK Fisher and Sybille Bedford.
I know I’m in Melbourne when I am wearing a down jacket at breakfast and a T-shirt at lunch.
When I visit Melbourne, my friends and I like to meet at Journal in the CBD.
And when I want to go all out on a special meal, I go to Transformer Next Door.
When I visit, my favourite place to stock up on Melbourne’s best supplies is the Victoria Market. It’s a cornucopia of eating goodness.
There’s no better value in Melbourne than Maalu Maalu in Brunswick.
The best new thing I’ve found is an ancient thing. Now I make South Asian yoghurt soup all the time in summer.
If I could change one thing about eating and drinking here it would be providing more vegetarian protein everywhere food is served (and I don’t mean processed faux meats).
But the one thing I hope never changes in Melbourne is the wonderful range of terrific mid-price dining.
Michelle de Kretser will be in conversation with Sophie Cunningham at The Wheeler Centre on Wednesday 30 October from 6.30pm for Spring Fling. Spring Fling is a month-long season of events presented across Melbourne and Victoria. Featuring potent truth-tellers and agenda-setting thinkers to form-breaking novelists and even a game-changing chef, this is a season of curiosity unleashed.
About Michelle de Kretser: Theory & Practice
It’s 1986 in Melbourne, and ‘beautiful, radical ideas’ are in the air. Theory & Practice’s protagonist should be researching the novels of Virginia Woolf, but instead finds herself veering into the radical bohemian scene and the arms of her polyamorous lover, Kit.
Michelle de Kretser’s seventh novel expertly dismantles our preconceptions of what a novel should be, bending memoir, essay and fiction into exhilarating new shapes to uncover what happens when life smashes through the boundaries of art.
At this Melbourne exclusive event, de Kretser is joined by host Sophie Cunningham to discuss Theory & Practice and the creative and intellectual influence of the Woolfmother.