Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 26 February
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
Contemporary New Zealand is undergoing a period of profound change. Migration from across the Asia Pacific region is reshaping the country, with Auckland now said to be the most multicultural city in Australasia.
To celebrate this Kiwi renaissance, author Lloyd Jones, whose Commonwealth Prize-winning novel Mister Pip graced the big screen last year, has co-edited Pacific Highways, the latest edition of the Griffith REVIEW.
What are the points of overlap between the two countries, and with New Zealand forming a whole new demographic identity, what does the future hold for our neighbours?
Contributor Alison Wong, whose first novel, As the Earth Turns Silver, won the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Award for Fiction, and Anton Blank, author and Maori child rights activist, join Lloyd on this panel to explore the exciting new direction for New Zealand culture.
Chaired by Julianne Schultz, editor of Griffith REVIEW.
Featuring
Anton Blank
Anton Blank (Ngati Porou/Ngati Kahungunu) is a Maori editor and writer who lives in Auckland. He is interested in indigenous cultural identities, the politics of gender and sexuality – and how these issues play out for indigenous peoples in contemporary settings.
Anton argues that the range of Maori experiences represented in literature currently in circulation is limited. Driven by a passion to read a more diverse range of Maori literature, and a natural inclination towards post-modernism, Anton established the Maori literary journal Ora Nui in 2012. Issue 2, which will be launched in March, includes contributions from Maori and Aboriginal writers.
Anton’s essays and prose have been published by Tandem Press, Huia Publishing, Anton Blank Ltd, and the Victoria University literary journal Turbine. Anton is also New Zealand’s most prominent Maori child advocate, leading the public debate about child poverty and related issues for Maori and Pasifika children.
Lloyd Jones
Lloyd Jones was born in New Zealand in 1955. His best-known novel is Mister Pip, which won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the 2008 Kiriyama Prize Fiction Category, the 2008 Montana Award for Readers Choice, the Montana Fiction Award and the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry.
Mister Pip was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and has been made into a major feature film, directed by Andrew Adamson (Shrek and Narnia). His other books include Hand Me Down World, The Book of Fame - which won the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the Tasmania Pacific Fiction Prize - Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance and Biografi. He has also published a collection of short stories, The Man in the Shed and a memoir, A History of Silence.
Most recently he co-edited Griffith REVIEW: Pacific Highways with Julianne Schultz.
Lloyd Jones lives in Wellington.
Julianne Schultz
Professor Emeritus Julianne Schultz AM FAHA is the Chair of The Conversation. She was the publisher and founding editor of Griffith Review, and is Professor Emeritus of Media and Culture at Griffith's Griffith Centre ...
Alison Wong
Alison Wong is a New Zealander based in Geelong. Her novel, As the Earth Turns Silver, won the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2010 Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award.
Her poetry collection, Cup, was shortlisted for the Best First Book for Poetry at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. She is working on a family memoir.