Peter was invited to two literary festivals in Australia in 2012. At the end of August at the Sydney Jewish Writers’ Festival in Sydney, he was invited to read from his favourite book at the Opening Ceremony (he selected Andre Schwarz-Bart’s The Last of the Just) and participated in three sessions: Stolen Childhoods, Tell All? How Much Do You Reveal in a Memoir? and Power and Politics. To the first two discussions, he brought experience from his well-received memoir, Parallel Lines, which has been reprinted for this occasion. His novel, Closed Horizon, paints a terrifying picture of the surveillance state of the near future in which power lies in the politics of information gatherings of individuals.
At the beginning of September, at the much larger Brisbane Writers’ Festival, opened by Germaine Greer with a controversial speech, the subjects of his sessions were even more challenging with a bias towards human behaviour: What Makes Us Happy? and Humans Are Fascinating. The third discussion was easily the most controversia, having the title of Extreme Right. This session, broadcast live by ABC National Radio, and screened in a shortened form on television, had the ambitious aim of discussing the rise of extreme right throughout the world.
In Melbourne Peter gave an interview on National Radio’s Sunday Extra in the Extra Perspective Series. Both in Sydney and in Melbourne he signed copies of his books: Parallel Lines and Closed Horizon.