Robert Dessaix is the quintessential public intellectual. Sparking off his new book ‘Abracadabra’, we talked about Robert’s personal language (‘K’), the inspiration he draws from Nikolai Gogol, and being raised by an adoptive father who was born in the 1880s. Our conversation took place as part of the ANU/Canberra Times Meet the Author Series, in association with Harry Hartog Bookshop.