Auckland Writers Festival
Episodes
The Great Divide - The University of Auckland Festival Forum (2017)
08 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A year of surprises, 2016 saw Britons vote to leave the European Union and Americans elect Donald Trump as president, leaving many dumbstruck and lock...
Gold And Glory
22 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Who doesn’t like a David and Goliath story? Striking Gold, written by Suzanne McFadden, is a social history of NZ and...
The Moral Mixing Desk
22 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 “When does philanthropy end and dirty self-promotion begin?” asks UK philosopher Julian Baggini in a recent newspap...
Sri Lanka Divided Samanth Subramanian
22 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 A forensic account of Sri Lanka’s 25-year civil war told by one of India’s most talented writers, Samanth Subramani...
Culture Crisis: Xu Zhiyuan
22 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 The cultural phenomenon Ai Weiwei has called Xu Zhiyuan “the most important Chinese intellectual of his generation”...
A Zest For Life: Petina Gappah
22 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Dubbed Zimbabwe’s answer to Zadie Smith by cultural magazine The Skinny, the multi-talented and energetic Petina Gapp...
Strangely Human: Michel Faber
22 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 The transcendent, unclassifiable novel The Book of Strange New Things is award-winning Michel Faber’s eighth, and his...
2016 Honoured NZ Writer: Vincent O'Sullivan
22 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 The pre-eminent scholar and distinguished novelist, playwright, short story writer, poet, biographer and librettist Vin...
The Unravelling: Emma Sky
22 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Iraqis likened Emma Sky to the early twentieth-century British adventurer Gertrude Bell, one of the architects of moder...
A Line At A Time: Omar Musa
17 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 It’s no surprise that hard man Irvine Welsh likes Omar Musa’s debut novel Here Come The Dogs, finding it a work of ...
Spirit House, Foreign Soil: Tusiata Avia & Maxine Beneba Clarke
17 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Maxine Beneba Clarke is a prize-winning Australian writer, essayist and slam-poetry champ of Afro-Caribbean descent wit...
Front Lines: Michael Grant
17 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 YA writer Michael Grant grew up in a military family and is quick off the mark – he moved in with his wife a day afte...
A Life In The Theatre: David Hare
17 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 In 1970 David Hare’s take on sisterhood, Slag, launched his prolific and stellar career as a playwright prepared to r...
An Evening With Gloria Steinem
17 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 The American hybrid journalist-activist Gloria Steinem is one of the twentieth century’s most influential feminists. ...
Big Blue Sky: Peter Garrett
17 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 The lofty Australian Peter Garrett has strode many a stage, whether as frontsman for the band Midnight Oil, Labour Part...
Power Tales: Thomas Mallon
17 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Fresh from Washington D.C., literary critic, essayist and historical novelist Thomas Mallon gives the skinny on the cap...
From The Centre: Yossi Alpher
17 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Israeli strategic consultant Yossi Alpher’s experience as an intelligence official for Mossad, director of the Jaffee...
A Capella: King Kapisi & Omar Musa
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Australian slam poet and hip hop artist Omar Musa and New Zealand hip hop legend King Kapisi come together for an acapp...
The Odd Woman & The City: Vivian Gornick
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 New Yorker Vivian Gornick – journalist, essayist, critic and author of 11 books including a biography of the anarchis...
Inside Outside: Helene Wong
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 THE MICHAEL KING MEMORIAL LECTURE In 1985 the late historian Michael King published Being Pakeha, a book which fathoms ...
Mexican Hooker #1: Carmen Aguirre
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Daughter of Chilean revolutionaries, and subsequently a political activist herself, Carmen Aguirre now lives in Canada ...
The State Of America
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 All eyes turn to America as the presidential race to be the 45th President of the United States plays out. From a dista...
Life Lessons: Hanya Yangihara
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 The 2015 tour de force A Little Life has provoked intense conversation among readers and critics alike, winning the Kir...
Feminist Days: Susie Orbach
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 The 1975 anti-diet book with the killer title - Fat Is A Feminist Issue - became and still is a bible for millions of w...
A Life's Work: Jane Smiley
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Jane Smiley arrives in NZ flush with the success of her Last Hundred Years trilogy – an investigation of American ide...
New Zealand Listener Gala Night 2016 - True Stories Told Live: Altered States
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 Our annual sell-out smorgasbord of stories – invariably funny, moving, and rousing – signals the start of three day...
The University of Auckland Festival Forum: The Border Debate
14 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2016 In 2015 more than a million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe, most fleeing the war-torn region of Syria. The e...
Sir Peter Williams QC: A Law Legend
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 New Zealand’s pre-eminent advocate, Sir Peter Williams QC, recalls the people and cases that have defined his remarka...
Helen Garner: Justice Observed
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 The quest for justice has seldom been more grippingly documented than in the book This House of Grief. The Australian n...
Carol Ann Duffy
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Clever, provocative and fun, the work of UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy is the perfect counter to anyone who would de...
Ken Auletta: The Media Revolution
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 We’re witnessing wild times in the world of media when traditional models are beseiged by technological advances and ...
Kim Thuy: Beauty Of The Everyday
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Kim Thúy and her family fled Vietnam as boat people, arriving in Canada via a refugee camp when she was ten. With a pr...
Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Canadian Emily St. John Mandel’s fourth novel Station Eleven was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Awards. In it,...
An Hour With Tim Winton
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Tim Winton is a leading exponent of short and long form fiction. Most recently the Guardian reviewed his novel Eyrie as...
Daniel Mendelsohn: An Irresistible Critic
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 “Our most irresistible literary critic,” says The New York Times Book Review. Daniel Mendelsohn is an elegant styli...
Anthony Horowitz: Bond And Beyond
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Anthony Horowitz mines the world of spooks and gumshoes to craft great books. Creator of The Diamond Brothers, Alex Rid...
Helen Macdonald: H Is For Hawk Helen Macdonald
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 English historian, poet, naturalist and illustrator Helen Macdonald once bred hawks for Arab sheikhs. She is also the w...
Atul Gawande: The End Matters Atul Gawande
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Atul Gawande writes profoundly about medicine. He’s a surgeon, author, researcher (with a particular interest in pati...
Ben Okri: The Age Of Magic Ben Okri
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Not long ago Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri caused a stir, writing in the Guardian that black and African writers ...
Peter FitzSimons: Gallipoli And Other Stories
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Former Wallaby lock, newspaper columnist, broadcaster and author Peter FitzSimons joins us from Sydney to talk about hi...
Natalie Haynes: A Guide For Modern Living
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 English comedian and classicist Natalie Haynes would rather we not see “Ancient Rome as a toga party to which our inv...
Satirists At Large
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
An irreverent and stinging session should be forthcoming as Steve Braunias, author of Mad Men, and David Slack, Metro contributor, gather with writer ...
C.K. Stead: 2015 Honoured NZ Writer
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 C.K. Stead is one of New Zealand’s foremost literary figures. A distinguished novelist, literary critic, poet, essayi...
Nick Davies: Hack Attack
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 One of the world’s leading investigative journalists, Nick Davies broke the phone hacking story in the UK, worked wit...
The Role Of The Critic
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Critics occupy an uncomfortable position, often finding themselves in the firing line from all sides: too harsh, too fa...
Renee: A Writing Life
22 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Auckland Writers Festival 2015 Playwright, novelist, poet, memoirist and blogger Renée has documented New Zealand’s social history in the latter pa...