Michael Visontay: An Evening with the Author

I’ve been lucky to speak with Michael Visontay twice about his superb work of non-fiction Nobel Fragments: The Maverick who broke up the world’s greatest book. 

A nobel fragment is the name given to an individual leaf from the holy grail of rare books – the Gutenberg bible, first substantial book in the Western world printed on a printing press. Visontay’s book introduces readers to Gabriel Wells, who’d fled Hungary and ended up a rare books seller in New York in the 1920s. By Gabriel Wells’ time only 50 Gutenberg bibles left and they weren’t all complete. When Wells got a slightly incomplete book, he made the audacious decision to break it up & sell it leaf by leaf, (a ‘Nobel Fragments’).

Visontay has a family connection to Wells. For lots of the book we’re overseas, in Gabrielle Wells time or learning about rare book dealers but a big chunk of the book also takes place in Sydney where Michael Visontay’s family moved and, with money left to them by Wells purchased a shop, opened a great deli in King’s Cross after World War II. This is a fascinating book, full of detail about Sydney’s cultural & culinary history. it’s also a family story and a kind of detective story too – the hunt for pages of the Gutenberg bible now scattered all over the world. The book sparks great questions about how important a Noble Fragment is in the age of AI, and about the democratization of knowledge. The Gertrude and Alice bookstore is an intimate space in Sydney’s Bondi. It’s a place where writers let their guards down and speak frankly about their writing and ideas. It’s a joy to be part of events there.