Festival Newsletters

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007

The exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin went into hiding in the Indian capital on Monday after being hounded across the country accused of insulting Muslims - highlighting the difficulty of reconciling the right to free expression with respect for religious belief in the world's largest democracy...

Read the full article on Guardian Unlimited>>

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007

Every year the Guardian Unlimited publish a fascinating and inspirational list of top reads according to some of the English speaking world's most accomplished authors...

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007

"His mouth lathered with her sap, he turned around and embraced her face with all the passion of his own lips and face, ready at last to grind into her with the Hound, drive it into her piety." - Norman Mailer
- The Castle in the Forest

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007

Born January 31 1923 - died November 10 2007

Norman Mailer, who has died aged 84, was the bad boy of post-war American literature. Short and stocky and with opinions on almost every subject, he combined a formidable writing talent with the streetwise attitude of a prize fighter...

Read his obituary on the BBC>>
Read the special report on Mailer on Guardian Unlimited>>

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007

Wilkins Wins Mansfield Writers' Prize

Congratulations Damien Wilkins! Damien was named the winner of the inaugural New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize, the $100,000 dollar prize consists of return airfares for two to London and the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship, making it New Zealand's most valuable international writer’s residency programme.

Prize in Modern Letters Shortlist Announced

Six emerging New Zealand writers have been short-listed for the $65,000 Prize in Modern Letters

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007

We love our Friends! Become one and help us continue to bring exceptional writers and thinkers to the stage, and to ensure that the festival remains a forum for the exchange of words and ideas. The success and sustainability of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival depends on financial support from sponsors, patrons and friends who believe that writing, books and ideas should be part of Auckland’s cultural life.

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Monday, Nov 05, 2007

"Do writers' filthy opinions soil their books?":

Ezra Pound was anti-semitic and a passionate supporter of Benito Mussolini. Norwegian writer, and Nobel Prize winner, Knut Hamsun was an outspoken supporter of Hitler and went so far as to send his Nobel prize medal as a gift to Joseph Goebbels in 1943.

"He was raised by crocodiles in a cesspool in Kuala Lumpur..."

Is writing about 'monsters' - killers, psychopaths and tyrants - just good copy?

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Monday, Nov 05, 2007

Author Harper Lee  has been awarded 'America's highest civilian honour' by President George Bush for her outstanding contribution to literature. To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee's only novel), which was a plea for racial tolerance, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961.   

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Monday, Nov 05, 2007

"September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back ov er the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible," Doris Lessing, recent winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, told the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Monday, Nov 05, 2007

A werewolf, a mummy, a vampire, insomnia, prosthetic limbs, silly walks, a really big mystery, vaudeville and melodrama. Silo Theatre's latest show, The Mystery of Irma Vep,  has two of our greatest theatrical show-offs turn themselves inside out in an outrageous parody of the gothic penny dreadful. Directed by Jennifer Ward-Lealand, and staring Oliver Driver and Michael Hurst, the show will run from 09th November - 15th December. Book now through Ticketmaster: ph: 09 970 9700 or visit www.ticketmaster.co.nz