Festival Newsletters

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Friday, Dec 21, 2007

The authorities have finally rumbled the England's most famous illegal immigrant. At a time of heightened sensitivity to mass immigration, the refugee background of Paddington Bear has persuaded Michael Bond to write his first novel about him for 29 years. In a surprisingly political opening chapter to Paddington Here and Now police interrogate the duffelcoat-wearing stowaway from darkest Peru about his residency status and right to remain in England.

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Friday, Dec 21, 2007

"The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise ...

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Friday, Dec 21, 2007

A novel that tackles fraught questions of identity, dislocation and loneliness through the life of an Ethiopian émigré in the US has taken this year's Guardian First Book Award.

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Friday, Dec 21, 2007

For other reading ideas have a look at some of the top hotlists:

The New York Times' 100 Notable Books of the Year
Christmas Reading from The Guardian
The Economist's Pick of the Bunch

By Auckland Writers & Readers Festival on
Friday, Dec 21, 2007

If you’re anything like the troops in the festival office, you’ll be looking forward to the next week or two as a time to open up those books that have been gathering dust next to your bed since last summer. Once the Christmas festivities are over – and with any luck you’ll come out the other side with even more books for your pile – you can escape to the beach/backyard/bed to blow the sand/grass/crumbs out of the pages from last year and catch up with some much needed time to read. Or sleep – sleep’s good.

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