Bryce Courtenay

Australian author Bryce Courtenay was recently recruited by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu "for the book, film and travelling exhibition by the American photographer Andrew Zuckerman, all titled Wisdom. Zuckerman travelled the world, filming, photographing and interviewing luminaries such as Nelson Mandela, Clint Eastwood, Malcolm Fraser and Henry Kissinger." In a talk the author gave at the State Library of New South Wales to mark the opening of the exhibition, "The Sydney Morning Herald" reported: "I thought it was a gag," he says. "None of us believes we have wisdom. Wisdom isn't a commodity that many of us particularly like to have anyway, because it sounds presumptuous and it sounds precocious." The exhibition runs at the State Library of NSW until November 16.