Page 26 - Auckland Writers Festival

University besides. She speaks with John Campbell about her life in letters and reads from her work in what promises to be a life-affirming session. A British Council Series event.
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TROuBLE In THE SOuTH CHInA SEA: BILL HAYTOn
THE MICHAEL kInG MEMORIAL LECTuRE
SunDAY MAY 17 – 12.00-1.00pM LOWER nzI ROOM, AOTEA CEnTRE
Crowned by The Economist as one of their books of the year, The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power
in Asia dissects the complexity, and the absurdity, of the current geo-political struggle and its far reaching implications. Author and BBC journalist Bill Hayton sets out the history of the turmoil and the wide-reaching risks in this little understood dispute.
71 FREE EVEnT
STOp TWEETInG ...COMMIT!
SunDAY MAY 17 – 12.00-1.00pM uppER nzI ROOM, AOTEA CEnTRE
In 2013, Metro magazine editor Simon Wilson bemoaned the poor standard of long-form journalism submitted for publication, holding that writers these days preferred to engage on social media platforms. A mild flurry ensued, and partly inspired editors Jolisa Gracewood and Susanna Andrew to publish Tell You What, a collection of New Zealand long-form non-fiction. Gracewood, Wilson
and Russell Brown slug it out in an exploration of the place for lengthy journalism and the public’s appetite for it. Chaired by Janet Wilson.
72 WEEkEnD GALLERY SERIES
SERIOuSLY Fun: DAVE VEART
SunDAY MAY 17 – 1.15-2.15pM AuCkLAnD ART GALLERY AuDITORIuM
Grab your shanghai and join Dave Veart for a tear through the history of New Zealand toys, from Mäori
voyagers to twenty-first-century gamers. Inspired by his book Hello Boys and Girls!, Veart, author of First Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cooking, will expound on the little things for little and not so little people. Fun Ho! Supported by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tämaki.
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An IRRESISTIBLE CRITIC
SunDAY MAY 17 – 1.30-2.30pM ASB THEATRE, AOTEA CEnTRE
“Our most irresistible literary critic,” says The New York Times Book Review. Daniel Mendelsohn is an elegant stylistic polymath – a reviewer but also an essayist, memoirist, classicial scholar and translator of the Greek poet CP Cavafy. In his memoir The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
he excavates his family history; in
his essay collection Waiting For The Barbarians he disses Mad Men as “melodrama rather than drama”. His new project is a literature-and-life book, recounting the year he spent reading The Odyssey with his late father and the revelations of that experience. He speaks with Ian Wedde.
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