Satire has long been used to expose the more absurd aspects of our realities. Anna Rawhiti-Connell talks to two of our keenest observers of contemporary life who have embraced the form to make sense of the current political moment.

In award-winning novelist Brannavan Gnanalingam’s eighth novel The Life and Opinions of Kartik Popat his eponymous protagonist makes a mockery of representational politics and pokes fun at Wellington’s political classes.

“It’s like Succession, but with alpacas” is how Toby Manhire describes Star Gazers, the latest from novelist and screenwriter Duncan Sarkies, which thrusts readers into the seedy and suspiciously Trumpian world of alpaca breeding.

They discuss the craft behind their novels, and the realities of taking the temperature of – and keeping pace with – politics in an ever-quickening news cycle.