We’re super excited to see that our good friends at Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts‘ have now announced details their festival programme, which is now fast approaching. It is a rich and varied programme that has something for everyone and features a host of authors you can find in our collection!
Of particular interest to us at the library is of course their fabulous writers programme element! This broad and varied programme holds a mirror up to both society and us as individuals and considers the many ways reading and writing are so vital to us. The programme features some of the finest writers from our own fair land, as well as well-known names from across the globe, making the programme unmissable.
The Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts’ writers programme will take place mainly at the cinematic jewel that is the Embassy Theatre, and runs from 23 – 25 Feb.
Follow this link here for the full programme and booking details.
As an appetiser to this dynamic exchange of ideas and stories, we have curated a list of featured titles available to borrow from our collections, which you might like to read before you go to one of the events. Have a browse below at just a very small selection of the events available, grab a good read and go enjoy some great literary events!
Hiwa : contemporary Māori short stories
“Contemporary Māori short stories, featuring twenty-seven writers working in English or te reo Māori. The writers range from famous names and award winners – Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Whiti Hereaka, Becky Manawatu, Zeb Nicklin – to emerging voices like Shelley Burne-Field, Jack Remiel Cottrell, Anthony Lapwood and Colleen Maria Lenihan. Hiwa includes biographical introductions for each writer’s work. Named for Hiwa-i-te-rangi, the ninth star of Matariki, signifying vigorous growth and dreams of the year ahead.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Explore the event linked to this title here.
Turncoat / Baker, Tīhema
“Daniel is a young, idealistic Human determined to make a difference for his people. He lives in a distant future in which Earth has been colonised by aliens. His mission: infiltrate the Alien government called the Hierarch and push for it to honour the infamous Covenant of Wellington, the founding agreement between the Hierarch and Humans. With compassion and insight, Turncoat explores the trauma of Māori public servants and the deeply conflicted role they are expected to fill within the machinery of government.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Explore the event linked to this title here.
Audition / Adam, Pip
“Audition is hurtling through space towards the event horizon. Squashed immobile into its rooms are three giants: Alba, Stanley and Drew. If they talk, the spaceship keeps moving; if they are silent, they resume growing. Talk they must, and as they do, Alba, Stanley and Drew recover their shared memory of what has been done to their incarcerated former selves. Or are they constructing those selves from memory-scripts that have been implanted in them? Part science fiction, part social realism, Audition asks what happens when systems of power decide someone takes up too much room, and about how we live with each other’s violences, and imagines a new kind of justice.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Explore the event linked to this title here.
An indigenous ocean : Pacific essays / Salesa, Damon Ieremia
“”Histories of our Pacific world are richly rendered in these essays by Damon Salesa. From the first Indigenous civilisations that flourished in Oceania to the colonial encounters of the nineteenth century, and on to the complex contemporary relationships between New Zealand and the Pacific, Salesa offers new perspectives on this vast ocean – its people, its cultures, its pasts and its future. Spanning a wide range of topics, from race and migration to Pacific studies and empire, these essays demonstrate Salesa’s remarkable scholarship. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Explore the event linked to this title here.
The artist / Solly, Ruby
“In a Southern land, where the veil of time and space has worn thin, twins with otherworldly ways are born to a stone carver and his wife. As they grow into themselves, the landscape and its histories will rise up to meet them and change their whanau forever. Cave art leaps from walls, pounamu birds sing, legends become reality, and history becomes the present in this verse novel by Ruby Solly (Waitaha, Kati Mamoe, Kai Tahu). The Artist brings to life the histories of our great Southern iwi through the whakapapa of its characters and the rich world they and their ancestors call their turakawaewae-their place to stand, their place to sing.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Explore the event linked to this title here.
Bird life / Smaill, Anna
“Bird Life, the second novel by Booker Prize longlisted author Anna Smaill, is a lyrical and ambitious exploration of madness and what it is like to experience the world differently. In Ueno Park, Tokyo, as workers and tourists gather for lunch, the pollen blows, a fountain erupts, pigeons scatter, and two women meet, changing the course of one another’s lives. Dinah has come to Japan from New Zealand to teach English and grieve the death of her brother, Michael, a troubled genius who was able to channel his problems into music as a classical pianist – until he wasn’t. In the seemingly empty, eerie apartment block where Dinah has been housed, she sees Michael everywhere, even as she feels his absence sharply.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Explore the event linked to this title here.
The words for her / Sleigh, Thomasin
“Hold up your phone to take a photo and some people won’t be there. Look for them in older images and their bodies are gaps, the rest of the photo still busy around them. People have stopped appearing in photographs. First a handful, then many more. Does this new, troubling group pose a threat? From their home in Whakatane, Jodie Pascoe and her daughter Jade watch as the number of gaps grows. While protecting Jade, Jodie searches for a friend from the past, Miri, who will help her navigate the collapsing present. The Words for Her is an arresting story about how photographs bind us together and what happens when those binds fall away.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Explore the event linked to this title here.
