Each year the world-renowned Auckland Writers Festival defines the cultural agenda in Aotearoa. This August, Kiwis will be treated to a marquee line-up of the world’s best and brightest writers and thinkers, as they descend on Tāmaki Makaurau for one week only.
Complex times demand rich responses, and if ever there were a time for amplifying the collective consciousness, it would be now. As borders have shuttered the world for two years, Aotearoa’s annual celebration of words and ideas returns in full-form with live and streaming events in Auckland from 22nd – 28th August.
As part of the 22nd festival, festivalgoers are invited to hear from world-leading experts on Putin and Afghanistan, a Golden-Globe winning actor turned New York Times bestseller, Māori and Pasifika stars lighting up the international poetry and spoken word scene, a two-time Oscar winner, and one of the UK’s most acclaimed philosophers, as well as iconic comedians, award-winning screenwriters, celebrated scientists, and prize-winning novelists.
Taking place in the Aotea Centre and other Auckland venues this winter, the festival will tackle themes as complex and varied as war, celestial navigation, abortion rights, Auckland’s architecture, wild weather, misinformation vs disinformation, and how three kiwi police officers became crime novelists. In addition to the festival’s signature mix of conversations and panels, across the week, Auckland will be host to a series of stirring theatre performances, poetry installations and public documentary screenings.
More than 30 international literary luminaries sit alongside more than 200 New Zealand writers, thinkers, facilitators, and panelists in the 2022 programme. While the full programme is on writersfestival.co.nz, a shortlist of the full line-up is outlined below.
Live events include New Yorker journalist and Putin expert Masha Gessen; two-time Oscar winner Jane Campion; preeminent philosopher A.C Grayling; feminist icon and bestselling author Clementine Ford; multi-million-copy selling novelist and TV-producer phenomenon Liane Moriarty, and former soldier, diplomat, and counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen.
Livestreaming-into-venue events include Golden Globe winning actor and bestselling author David Duchovny on his four novels including latest work Truly Like Lightning; 2021 Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah discussing his lauded career including critically acclaimed novel By the Sea; and historian, activist, and essayist Rebecca Solnit on her striking and elegant biography of George Orwell. There will be digital workshop and salon appearances from writers including Colm Toibin, Michael Rosen, Lydia Davis, Jan Kemp, Warsan Shire, Damon Galgut, Stephanie Dowrick, Graeme Simsion, Delia Ephron, Lea Ypi and Meg Mason.
In a very special slice of kiwiana, The Naked Samoans will join John Campbell live on stage in a one-off and highly-anticipated reunion; Jack Webster Te Kapene Thatcher will offer a beginner’s guide to the artful science of celestial navigation; and Hēmi Kelly and the Embassy of Ireland come together to celebrate their work on the launch of Ngā Whakamāoritanga – a te reo Māori translation of Brian Friel’s Irish literary masterpiece Translations.
Curatorial strands, led by Moana Maniapoto, Leki Jackson-Bourke and Rosabel Tan, include a conversation on ethics and art inspired by the viral phenomenon of the ‘bad art friend’; three key players from Moana Nui-A-Kiva traversing the highs and lows of promoting Pasifika languages through the arts; and a kōrero on the future of Māori journalism as it leads and shapes the news agenda.
Special events include Art and Power, a music and readings performance from the Sydney Art Quartet; a celebration of Stephen Sondheim with guests including Hayden Tee and Jennifer Ward-Lealand; theatrical works Hello Darkness, Ka-Shue, and Paragon Dreams; rising hip hop and spoken word stars in New Dawn; and a sound journey through the night with Annette Lees, Rewi Spraggon and Riki Bennett.
Aotea Square hosts documentary screenings of Martin Hill & Philippa Jones’ epic Fine Lines sculpture project and Gaylene Preston’s Keri Hulme tribute Kai Purakau, as well as a poetry installation work.
The Auckland Writers Festival will be taking over Beresford Square on Friday night with STREETSIDE. Authors will appear at Red Bar to dive deep into the nuances of bar conversations, men’s sauna Centurian will become a heated story den, and dreams of faraway places will be shared in the Northern Line Bar – to name just a few of the eclectic experiences to cap off the working week.
Festival Director Anne O’Brien says the 22nd event will be a triumphant return to the stage after a short postponement due to the pandemic.
“Whilst the delay presented challenges, it also provided us with incredible opportunities to develop even further the quality, depth and breadth of this year’s offerings. This year’s line-up will give New Zealand audiences access to one of the year’s most entertaining, enlightening, and world-class cultural experiences, live in Tāmaki Makaurau.”
The 12th iteration of the beloved Festival Gala Night takes place on Thursday 25 August in the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre. The Gala, supported by Craigs Investment Partners, see a group of intrepid writers take the stage, in turn, to tell a seven-minute, unscripted true story, prompted by this year’s phrase: ‘Across the Divide’. This year, Gala attendees will hear from ex-military business writer and leadership coach Harold Hillman, the boy from Gorge River Chris Long, GP and essayist Dr Himali McInnes, Tampa survivor and strategic studies master Abbas Nazari, the queen of historical fiction Jenny Pattrick, rising poetry star Tayi Tibble, and Irish physicist and science communicator Laurie Winkless.
The inaugural Auckland Writers Festival was held in 1999. Founded by award-winning Kiwi novelist, poet and playwright Stephanie Johnson and the late filmmaker and historian Peter Wells, it delivered a modest programme of 40 events to around 5,200 people. AWF has grown to become one of the most highly anticipated cultural events in the New Zealand landscape, and one of the best attended writer’s festivals, per capita, in the world.
Public tickets are on sale from 9am Friday 17 June via Ticketmaster: online or by calling 0800 111 999.
The full 2022 Auckland Writers Festival events series is outlined on our website or you can view the digital programme here.
