Academics join writers festival lineup

High-profile international names and top local talent, including a strong showing from the University of Auckland, will feature at the Auckland Writers Festival, which runs from 12–17 May.

Among them are Professor Margaret Mutu (Māori Studies), Associate Professor Sereana Naepi (Social Sciences) and Associate Professor Paula Morris (English and Drama).

A specialist in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Māori rights and Māori resistance to British colonisation, Margaret (Ngāti Kahu, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Whātua, Scottish) will be taking part in two events.

On 16 May, she’ll be talking about ‘How to be a good ancestor’ at an event looking at how the choices we’re making today will shape the lives of those coming after (with Tāme Iti, Richard Shaw and Gabriella Brayne).

And on 17 May, ‘The Waitangi Tribunal – 50 years’ will focus on a collection of essays to which she is a contributor: 50 Years of The Waitangi Tribunal – Whakamana I Te Tiriti, which surveys the landmark decisions, results and reports of the tribunal over its half century. 

Author, essayist and director of the Master of Creative Writing programme, Paula Morris (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Manuhiri) will be in conversation with festival headliners Canadian author Yann Martel (Life of Pi) on 15 May and US writer Louise Erdrich (The Night Watchman, Love Medicine) on 17 May.

Yann Martel’s major new novel Son of Nobody has been described as bridging ‘the 3,000-year gap between a Trojan war soldier and a modern-day Oxford scholar, to explore the universality of homesickness, regret, ambition, love and grief’.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ojibwe (Chippewa) and German heritage, Louise Erdrich’s novels examine Native American life, identity and community, often through interconnected stories set in the American Midwest. She will be talking to Paula about her career, her latest novel The Mighty Red and short story collection The Python’s Kiss.

And on 16 May, the busy Paula will host a session with top Korean contemporary writer Bora Chung. Described as a ‘unique, unsettling blend of speculative fiction, horror, folktales and societal critique’, Bora Chung’s work has seen her shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and National Book Award for her short-story collection Cursed Bunny.

Her latest collection is The Midnight Timetable, which is ‘equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny and deeply political’, according to the festival programme.

Pacific people’s experiences of racism in Aotearoa is the subject of Oceans Between Us: Pacific Peoples and Racism in Aotearoa, edited by Pacific scholar Sereana Naepi (Fijian, Pākehā) and published by Auckland University Press.

The book encompasses perspectives from 13 expert contributors across education, health, climate and justice, and Sereana will be discussing it with spoken word poet Zech Soakai on 16 May.

Other big names in this year’s festival include Roddy Doyle, Maggie Farrell, Amitav Ghosh, Ian McEwan, Mick Herron, A.C. Grayling, Fran Lebowitz and M. Gessen.

Also featured will be alumni from the University’s Master of Creative Writing course, including Rachel Paris and Saraid de Silva.

The Faculty of Arts and Education is a festival silver sponsor and is also supporting the masterclasses.

– Julianne Evans