Will Australia Bow Down To The A.I Oligarchs? (Featuring Anna Funder)

Clancy Overell (0:01)

You're listening to a DM Podcast.

Welcome back to Betoota Talks, our weekly podcast segment on YouTube and all I guess podcast platforms. There's a few of them now, so they're all free, wherever you get them. You're obviously on one if you're listening to this right now. My name is Clancy Overell, you know that. And today's guest, we're very, very lucky to speak to today's guest.

I guess you'd say somewhat royalty in many different circles. But to me, she's number 23 on the Radio National 100 Best Aussie Books. Anna Funder, thank you for joining us.

Anna Funder (0:57)

Thank you for having me.

Clancy Overell (0:59)

Were you keeping an eye on that as the votes were coming in?

Anna Funder (1:02)

No, no, I wasn't. I tend to go into massive denial about those things. It's really, really hard because once somebody starts listing you, you've got no control over it. And you can say, well, I don't care. But then you're going to be on the list or not on the list or whatever. So it's a very weird feeling.

Clancy Overell (1:19)

And I'm the first person who's probably asked you your thoughts on the whole thing. So thank you for joining us today. I want to talk about those different phases that kind of come in your life. Look, we know Trent Dalton as Queenslanders, we're kindred spirits with young Trent, I call him.

Anna Funder (1:36)

Yeah.

Clancy Overell (1:38)

Still feels like a young bloke in the literary world, doesn't he? I mean, he's three books in now, but that's been pretty fast. But he was one of those guys that went, and this is something that I think you must have experienced, judging by your age when Stuzzy Land came out.

Just going from being a writer to being an author. What is that like? I know Trent Dalton experienced it with Boys' Wellers University.

Anna Funder (2:03)

Yeah.

Clancy Overell (2:04)

And I also feel like as intense as that was, it kind of happened when there was a lot going on in the world in terms of media. When it happened with you, there was a pretty concentrated media in Australia.

Anna Funder (2:20)

Yeah.

Clancy Overell (2:20)

And everyone was talking about you. Well, your books, okay?

Anna Funder (2:24)

Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I mean, I think it couldn't happen to a nicer guy in Trent. And he's handled it well. He's handled it so beautifully. And I think he, you know, there's always the author and there's the book. And then people read the book with the author in mind, particularly because of media which happened to Trent. And, you know, that's a lovely combo when you think about him. But people love him and they love his work. And yeah, I think it's fantastic. Me, so Starzyland was like 2020, no, 2002, here.

So a long time ago. And it didn't really make so much of a ripple here, I have to say, not that I remember. I mean, I had a baby and the book came out six weeks later, so I was a little distracted and sleep deprived in the beginning and didn't probably register all that much. It won then this big prize in the UK called the Samuel Johnson. And then when that was, I don't think this happened so much anymore, but when that was on the ABC News as a news item, that's when I sort of thought this is beyond me now.

Clancy Overell (3:35)

Now it's, my family members know what I do for a living.

Anna Funder (3:38)

Well, exactly what I have been doing in my pajamas in the locked room for many years.

Clancy Overell (3:43)

There's certain things happening in global politics, local politics, there's certain trends worldwide that appear like they've happened before. They're kind of like history revisiting itself.

I want to talk to you about those things that you've probably seen metaphors or parallels of this happening in your work and in your research. But I also want to talk about the Berlin Wall. So what does the Berlin Wall symbolize for the younger listeners here? As someone who was on the ground in East Berlin at that time, around the time the wall came down and afterwards, what does that represent? And is there any metaphors to the current times we live in in terms of those types of governments and those kinds of surveillance states or those kind of orteritarian regimes that lead to something like the Berlin Wall?

Anna Funder (4:43)

So I guess to put it in context, the thing that's one of the things that's most striking at the moment are parallels with the 1930s in Germany. So we have the rise of fascist regimes or proto-fascist or neo-fascist regimes around the world, including in America, because of massive inequality and people feeling hopeless and that they're not being represented. So you have these mager movements and so on.