"The Slap" won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, it was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award and listed for the Man Booker Prize. Since its publication in 2008, The Slap has been on Australian bestseller lists and in 2009 it was the fourth biggest-selling title by an Australian author. Now a German translation has been released.

Tsiolkas, the son of Greek immigrants, has written three previous novels: Loaded, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe, which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. He is also a playwright, essayist and screenwriter and lives in Melbourne where "The Slap" is set.

Tsiolkas presents the impact of this apparently minor domestic incident through the eyes of eight characters. One afternoon at a suburban barbecue a man slaps a disobedient three-year-old boy. The boy is not his son. It is this single event - the slap- that reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it. The result is a portrayal of modern family life that explores the boundaries and limits of these multifaceted characters. The book's growing popularity outside of Australia indicates the issues it raises have touched a nerve with individuals far beyond Melbourne suburban life.

Christos Tsiolkas is currently touring Germany with "The Slap." DW spoke to him and asked him firstly about his initiation to literature, which came from his father – a Greek immigrant, who bought books home to his son, he himself could not read:

Christos Tsiolkas: My parents didn't have the opportunity of an education and as migrants to Australia it was very, very important to educate your children. And they could see from a very early stage that I loved reading and responded to reading. So Dad – every week – he would get his paycheck and go to the local book shop and get me two books at a time. Sometimes it would be children's books - that was where I discovered Enid Blyton or Jules Vern - but sometimes because he could not read English, it might be Henry Miller. I remember once getting “Tropic of Capricorn”, which I read much later. It could be Harold Robins or it might be Charles Dickens. It was actually a splendid way to be introduced to literature.

I guess - for your parents they suffered greatly before they went to Australia – it was for them most likely - symbolically a land of hope?

It is interesting because there are varied responses to migration. I think the hardest aspect of migration to a place like Australia is how distant it is. Particularly - my Dad came in the late fifties, my mum in the early 60s. Air travel back to your country of origin was unimaginable. The journey by ship was over forty days - people didn't have telephones. It is very hard to think back to that time. Australia - because of its distance - meant there was a sense of loss. But the country they left was ravaged not only because of World War Two, but they had also been a very lethal civil war. And my father, to this day says that he is so pleased that he came to a place like Australia - a place where he can raise his children in safety and freedom.

And he used to say this line - and the reason it is fresh in my mind it that a Greek - German woman said this to me a few nights ago in Stuttgart - this time in reference to the current situation in Greece. "The thing about Greece is that it eats youth" - this is what my father also said. He was someone who responded to the opportunity of a place like Australia. The other thing is that Greeks are great travelers, (laughs) it is one of our historic strengths I think.

Melbourne is a city that is very much influenced by its Greek population. What many don't realize is that it is the second largest Greek city in the world. It also makes it a unique setting for "The Slap." The book opens with an incident at a family BBQ in a suburban home. By utilizing an incident where a child is disciplined – did you want to find a common theme for various generations?

I knew I wanted to write a novel about contemporary middle class life and I'd already started to form some of the characters.

The novel opens at a barbeque held by a couple, Hector and Aisha - he is Greek-Australian and she, Indian-Australian. I'd already started to write about that family - and who these people were. But I was at a barbeque at my parents - when my mother was a little frenzied and there was a little boy, a friend's son - a lovely little boy - who was running amongst her feet. My mother was making so much food and at one point the little boy upset the pans and my mother very, very lightly grabbed him and patted him on the backside. And that's when he turned to her in outrage and said- I still remember the shock on his face, "no one has the right to touch my body without my permission." His exact words.

As soon as that happened and returning from the barbeque that evening, I knew how to begin the book. Because I wanted to write a book about our relationships and the way our families work, our marriages work, our love relationships and the way children and adults interact. And that moment where a little three year old was confronting this huge difference between his experiences and the experiences of my mother who came from a much more savage place and a much more savage historic experience. I just thought - well that's how I am going to begin the book.

Sometimes I think as a writer you get gifts, that fall into your hands, and that is what it felt like when I witnessed that particular moment. Because I knew that was an incident that spoke so much about change and so much about culture and so much about history. You know - something as simple as the way we treat a child.

You chose to write in eight different voices - male and female characters, different ages and different ethnic backgrounds that have all come together in the melting pot Melbourne. Finding these multifaceted voices must have been a daunting task?

You know part of the work of writing a novel is found within the work of doing it itself. It is really important - and I can only speak from my experience and "The Slap" is my fourth novel - structure is really important. I knew it would be a multiple voice novel, that I was going to take the story across multiple characters, and part of that was just to see if I could do it - to pull it off. Could I sustain a reader's interest across these very varied voices? So part of it was a test I was setting myself as a writer. The other thing is, because I was writing a contemporary novel about how we live now, about - if you like, the state of the world we live in - in my home country. If I'd started a novel like this when I was in my twenties I probably would have one dominant voice, being much more clearer in my perspective. I was entering my forties when I started this novel. And I am less righteous these days, I'm less sure, and things are no longer black and white. And it was part of that confusion that I wanted to give experience to, in the writing of this novel. And it seemed to me that multiple voices would be more authentic and more truthful to the searching that many of us are going through in the middle class.

I discovered too -as a male writer - I was really fascinated by the women I was creating. And I'm really fascinated by women's friendships and relationships. It seems to me they can be very harsh and critical of each other, and I wanted to try to nail that and discover what the differences are between male and female relationships.

"The Slap" displays your talent to observe and to record people and situations around you. Did you feel isolated and often in the position of observing as a young gay man?

When I was growing up - and I'm going to be very careful now because I think it is very different social and political climate today. When I was growing up there was something about the outsider status of the homosexual that - I think - allowed me to observe the world. It allowed me to live in the masculine and the feminine as well. I mean all those things I'm really grateful for. It was great, but also shitty as well.

I imagine lonely?

Yes it was. When I was growing up I really did think I was the only gay in the village (laughs). I don't think I'm isolated on that - I think there are a lot of men and women of my generation who would have felt that and that aspect of self loathing was part of that experience. But what I'm grateful for is that it did give me the objective eye and it did give me a respect for the outsider position.

"The Slap" captures a world of much excess - there are lots of drugs, alcohol and sex and from the excess it seems many of these characters problems are born?

Oh yes - the novel came from me wanting to understand the incredible level of greed and materialism that was happening in the late part of the 90s and very 2000s in Australia. The way we could never ever, ever be satisfied with what we had. We wanted bigger houses, bigger cars we wanted everything. And that excess was also represented in our sexualities, it was represented in the way we were treating our children. You couldn't just have a child that wanted to play in the park and may not necessarily be the brightest and the fastest but would be a good kid - that wasn't enough anymore. Everything seemed to be about excess. And it was something that was making me sick. And I think as a culture - greedy and selfish. It is very much a novel set in Melbourne and very much an Australian novel, but my sense, after traveling to many places in the world is that this excess is not only a problem in Melbourne or Australia.

Author: Breandáin O' Shea
Editor: Jessie Wingard