The Redfern arts performance space Carriageworks will swell with an estimated tens of thousands of bibliophiles this week as the Sydney Writers' Festival gets under way.

Evicted from its long-term home at Walsh Bay while it is under development, the festival celebrates its 21st year at the new venue, close to the University of Sydney, sharing space with the Biennale of Sydney.

NBC News correspondent Katy Tur.

A line-up of international and Australian writers and journalists will celebrate the power of literature and words, explore sex, race and gender politics, bring understanding to the influence of the Murdoch media and make sense of the Trump White House.

As in the previous year, three celebrated writers will open the six-day program, which opens earlier this year to make way for Fashion Week. André Aciman, author of the coming-of-age novel Call Me by Your Name, since adapted into an award-winning film, Korean-American novelist Min Jin Lee and Alexis Okeowo, whose A Moonless, Starless Sky won the 2018 PEN Open Book Award, will each deliver an address on the theme of power.

Among the festival's 436 authors and moderators will be former prime minister Julia Gillard who is back talking gender and power at a sold-out event in Sydney Town Hall. Also sold out is Helen Garner's rare return to the public stage where she will reflect on the power of self-scrutiny and just how impartial are writers in observing themselves and others.