Note that episode starts at 4:55

The Auckland Writers Festival 13-week WINTER SERIES streamed live and free every Sunday morning from 3 May - 26 July 2020.

Episode 7 features:

AN YU (China) An Yu's debut novel Braised Pork captures contemporary life in a dizzyingly changing China. The Guardian described it as “Poised between silliness and high seriousness, contrasting narrative wildness with cool prose, the novel ignores the conventional advice “tell a dream, lose a reader.” An Yu has returned to live in Beijing after graduating from New York University, and stints in Paris and Hong Kong.

ANTHONY BYRT (Aotearoa New Zealand) Art critic Anthony Byrt's latest book, The Mirror Steamed Over, takes us back to London’s art scene in the late 50's and early 60's focussing on the artists Billy Apple, David Hockney and the writer Ann Quin. His first book This Model World: Travels to the Edge of Contemporary Art was 2017 Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted.

CHRISTINE FERNYHOUGH (Aotearoa / New Zealand) For the last 30 years Christine Fernyhough has amassed a collection of 4000 mid-century NZ objects. Her curatorial policy is loose – toys, tableware, furniture, and ephemera have all made the cut, as have royal family merchandise and Crown Lynn ware. Mid-Century Living: The Butterfly House Collection is her book showcasing the collection, housed in her Northland bach. Philanthropist Fernyhough co-founded Books in Homes with Alan Duff, wrote the best-selling memoir The Road to Castle Hill about the high-country station she ran and set up the online catalogue of domestic objects The NZ Museum of the Everyday.

HOST: PAULA MORRIS (Aotearoa New Zealand) Paula Morris (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua) is an award-winning fiction writer and essayist. The 2019 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow, she teaches creative writing at The University of Auckland, sits on the Māori Literature Trust and is the founder of the Academy of NZ Literature.

This series provides an opportunity to champion New Zealand and international books that were to feature at our now-cancelled May Festival, we encourage you to support writers and NZ publishers and booksellers and the featured books can be purchased here.

The Festival thanks its presentation partner Auckland Live, as well as Copyright Licensing New Zealand and all our generous sponsors, funders, patrons and friends whose support has enabled us to continue our work during these extraordinary times.