WRITING HOME: AN ANTIDOTE TO FEELING STRANDED | Pukapuka Talks [DIGITAL]
There are – in the tradition of Katherine Mansfield, Robin Hyde and Janet Frame – many Aotearoa writers who live beyond our shores. What message would they like us to hear?
What can our writers who have returned home offer their far flung fellow wordsmiths? How do more recent arrivals to our island nation in the south Pacific grapple with having more than one home?
And how can we all take inspiration from these trailblazers and use the written word to connect with our own loved ones who are overseas?
As part of this year’s Festival, we’ll be offering a series of digital works that contemplate these questions and encourage our community to do the same.
Where can I find these works?
All videos will be released below their bios (scroll down) and on our social media across the Festival dates.
Some tips for your watching
Click the four arrows in the bottom right hand corner of the video to enter full screen.
Captions are available for all of our videos. You can turn them on in the bottom right hand corner of the video (click CC). Links to videos with embedded captions are below each video.
Hinemoana Baker
Hinemoana Baker (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Kāi Tahu) is a writer and performer currently living in Berlin, Germany. She is primarily a poet and musician, though she has also been involved with theatre, film and experimental sound work. Her latest collection of poetry, ‘Funkhaus’, was shortlisted in 2021 for The Ockhams New Zealand Book Awards. Hinemoana is completing her Doctorate at Potsdam University through the ‘Minor Cosmopolitanisms’ Research Training Group there. More information here and here.
Trigger Warning for the above video: Death, Cancer
Embedded caption version of this video can be found at this link along with a video description.
Rajorshi Chakraborti
Rajorshi Chakraborti was born in Kolkata, India, and lives in Wellington. He is the author of six novels and a collection of short fiction. His most recent novel, Shakti, a supernatural mystery thriller set in the political landscape of present-day India, was published in 2020, and has been longlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award, 2021. You can find out more about Raj’s work at www.rajorshichakraborti.nz
Trigger Warning for the above video: Ill parent
Embedded caption version of this video can be found at this link along with a video description.
Paula Morris
Paula Morris MNZM (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Manuhiri, Ngāti Whatua) is a fiction writer and essayist from Auckland. She co-edited the landmark anthologies Ko Aotearoa Tātou (2020) and A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa NZ (2021), and collaborated with photographer Haru Sameshima on Shining Land: Looking for Robin Hyde (2020). An Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, where she directs the Master of Creative Writing, Paula is the founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature and serves on the boards of the NZ Book Awards Trust, the Māori Literature Trust, the Mātātuhi Foundation and the Coalition for Books.
Embedded caption version of this video can be found at this link along with a video description.
Mohamed Hassan
Mohamed Hassan is an award-winning journalist and poet from Auckland and Cairo. He was the 2015 National Poetry Slam Champion and runner up at the UK National Poetry Slam in 2021. In 2017 he was awarded the Gold Trophy at the New York Radio Awards for his RNZ podcast series ‘Public Enemy’. His collection of poems ‘National Anthem’ was published by Dead Bird Books in 2020 and was shortlisted at the Ockham National Book Awards.
The version of the video on Vimeo can be found at this link along with a video description.
Angelique Kasmara
Angelique Kasmara has a Master of Creative Writing from the University of Auckland. The manuscript for her novel Isobar Precinct won the 2016 Sir James Wallace Prize for Creative Writing, was a finalist for the 2019 Michael Gifkins Prize and The Cuba Press is publishing it in August 2021. Some of her fiction appears in Newsroom, Ko Aotearoa Tātou | We Are New Zealand and A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa. Angelique lives in Tāmaki Makaurau where she works as a communications manager, writer, translator and reviewer.
Trigger Warning: genocide, trauma, racism.
The version of the video on Vimeo can be found at this link along with a video description.
Hinemoa Elder
Dr Hinemoa Elder (Te Aupouri, Ngati Kuri, Te Rarawa and Ngapuhi) has lived on Waiheke Island for 21 years. She is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, working at the Child and Family Unit at Starship Hospital, in Auckland. She is also a Maori Strategic Leader for the Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) for the Ageing Brain. Aroha: Māori wisdom for a contented live lived in harmony with our planet is her first book. You can find her on Instagram @drhinemoa.
The version of the video on Vimeo can be found at this link along with a video description.
DIGITAL
Throughout the Festival
Free