There are approximately three million robots working in factories around the world, and another 30 million in people’s homes. Soon robots will outnumber humans. But what happens if an autonomous AI harms or kills a person, deliberately or accidentally? It will happen. In fact, it already has. In Machines Behaving Badly, Professor Toby Walsh – Laure…

Pip Williams’ best-selling novel The Dictionary of Lost Words tells the story of motherless Esme who spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers gather words for the first Oxford English Dictionary. Over time she discovers words relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. T…

The judges for the winning 2022 Booker Prize praised Shehan Karunatilaka’s novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida for the ‘ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques’. Set in Sri Lanka during the 25- year civil war, a murdered photographer has seven days to solve the mystery of his own death. It’s a philosophical …

The Book of Roads and Kingdoms brings to life a dazzling culture of science, literature, philosophy and adventure arising out of the flourishing metropolis of Baghdad during Islam’s Golden Age. Australian writer / broadcaster Richard Fidler recounts how medieval Persian and Arab wanderers ventured by camel, horse and boat into the unknown, bringing…

Delightfully inventive and witty, Daniel Lavery (as Mallory Ortberg) was the cofounder of The Toast, the pop-culture platform with literary depth that described its target audience as ‘librarians’. The best-selling author of Texts from Jane Eyre and Merry Spinster, next wrote Something that May Shock and Discredit You, an exhilarating series of ess…

In the opening paragraphs of Stella Prize shortlisted Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, author Louisa Lim is torn between journalistic neutrality and her love of Hong Kong as she is invited by guerrilla sign painters to grab a brush and help produce pro-democracy banners. An award-winning journalist who reported from China fo…

With open source AI chatbots capable of generating text that appears increasingly human, will they eventually replace writers altogether? Some claim that AI will never have enough creativity, empathy or originality – but over time could even these qualities be assimilated by robotwriters? Canvas editor Sarah Daniell recently experimented with getti…

Two-Spirit is a pan-Indigenous expression (FNMI – First Nations, Metis and Inuit) from Turtle Island (North America) reflecting complex understandings of gender roles, spirituality and a long history of diversity. Two-Spirit writer Joshua Whitehead (Oji-Cree member of the Peguis First Nation) took the word Indigenous and braided it with the word qu…

In Another Day in the Colony, Mununjali and South Sea Islander health activist Chelsea Watego has a chapter called F**k Hope. She urges her mob to be nihilistic because hope is the dream deferred, better to embrace sovereignty and take matters into your own hands. Sharing the conversation is podcaster and author Dr Emma Espiner (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngā…

How do fiction writers deal with Covid? Full-on or sideways? Stephanie Johnson embraces it with gusto in her new satirical novel Kind, a thriller set in lockdown, with devious plots, social blunders and superyachts. Fiona Farrell’s The Deck is set a little way into the future and borrows a motif of Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron in which a smal…

In his book No Excuses Dave ‘the Brown Buttabean’ Letele shares how he overcame poverty, depression and crime to become an award-winning community leader inspiring people to turn their lives around. Willy De Wit was a regular on TV shows such as Funny Business, and a brekkie host on Radio Hauraki. In Drink, Smoke, Snort, Stroke he charts his journe…

When I hear my father deadI flew 10 hours into the sunnext morning I put black onThe 2023 TS Eliot Prize award-winning Sonnets for Albert by Anthony Joseph was cited by the judges as ‘a luminous collection which celebrates humanity in all its contradictions and breathes new life into this enduring form’. Born in Trinidad, with calypso, surrealism, …

‘Whatever its subject, when a novel is powerful enough, it transports us readers deep into worlds not our own. That’s true of Moby Dick, and it’s certainly true of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which renders the process of designing a great video game as enthralling as the pursuit of that great white whale.’ Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Ai…

Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Colson Whitehead is the only writer to win for consecutive books. His best-selling novels 'The Underground Railroad' and 'The Nickel Boys' addressed racial injustice with what has been described as ‘lived wit’. Also the winner of many other prestigious awards, Whitehead’s wide cultural impact was s…

The word ‘Powwow’ is often used to refer to a quick impromptu meeting, but in Northern Plains Indigenous cultures, there is nothing quick or casual about their traditional gathering and ceremony. Rejecting misappropriation, where a cultural element is taken out of context and used in another – such as ripping off the Haka, or joking about didgerido…

The impacts of climate change are upon us, we know that, and the recent brutal weather events have shown we can’t sit idly by. It’s time for fresh thinking and radical action. Veteran journalist Simon Wilson, the author of several searching newspaper articles on our post-flood, post-cyclone future, will discuss new ways of approaching climate risk …

Three young fluent te reo speakers producing inspirational work across a variety of genres, talk about the bravery and passion it took to take the unmapped uncharted leap into a creative life. Founding member of award-winning slam poetry group Ngā Hine Pūkōrero Arihia Hall (Te Arawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Tūkorehe); the youngest director ever sel…

Aotearoa’s most anticipated book release of 2023 has been Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, coming ten years after she won the Booker Prize for The Luminaries. A psychological thriller set in the South Island, Shakespearean in scope, a battle between good and evil – it has a complex intellectual core and also a great sense of mischief. Catton now lives…

Is The Axeman’s Carnival the great Kiwi Gothic classic? Plenty of reviewers think so. Catherine Chidgey surprised everybody when she revealed her next book was going to be narrated by a mimicking magpie. Would it work? It sure does. Not only is it funny and magical, it’s also a bird’s-eye view into the very real struggle of farming life, a nuanced …

The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlisted novel, Kāwai, by Dr Monty Soutar ONZM (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngā Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Kahungunu) has remained on the New Zealand bestseller list ever since it was released. The first in a planned trilogy, it met an appetite to bring to life the pre-colonial history of Māori. Soutar had an epiphany th…

2023 marks the centenary year of Katherine Mansfield’s too-soon demise from pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 34. She is still cherished today in New Zealand and across the world, having played a part in shaping modernism, experimenting with style in a body of work that redefined genre. Some literary critics have called her the best short-story …

It’s the Oscars of the writing world – winning the Booker Prize supercharges a writer’s career, immediately lifts sales, multiplies overseas deals and opens up opportunities all around the world. But what does this kind of superstardom feel like for the writer on the inside? Three Booker Prize winners, Eleanor Catton, Bernardine Evaristo and Shehan…

In night, suspense, lawlessness, hazard, sensuousness and awe are evoked simply by stepping outside,” says Annette Lees, author of 2022 Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted After Dark – in which she walks readers into the nights of Aotearoa, in the company of bats, owls, moths and seabirds, on a fascinating exploration of stories beyond the dusk.Spend …

Chris Long, author of 'The Boy From Gorge River', grew up in a remote off-grid corner of the South Island, two days walk from the nearest town; writer, UNICEF goodwill ambassador and philanthropist Jo Morgan, author of 'Dancing With The Machine', lived with her husband Gareth, son Sam (founder of Trade Me) and their three other children on a Bedfor…

Author Tessa Duder began her adult life as a representative swimmer, winning a silver medal at the 1958 Cardiff Empire Games in the 110 yards butterfly. This incredible achievement would inspire the Alex Quartet, for which she is probably best known. Loved by generations of teenagers, and garnering Duder three New Zealand Children’s Book of the Yea…

Shaped by the forces of 1970s Ireland and by a mother raging against her hemmed-in life, broadcaster, writer and podcaster Noelle McCarthy escaped Ireland for party town Auckland in the early 2000s – seeking a new world far away from the cultural fabric of her homeland. Many years later, and now a mother herself and a recovering alcoholic, she retu…

The traditions of fable and myth – Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the tales of Aesop and Grimm, Homer’s Iliad and the pūrākau of Polynesia, to name a few – have acted as compasses for millennia, exploring human experience and answering timeless questions. Join two contemporary writers at the height of their powers – Commonwealth Prize winner and Man Booker-…

Breathtaking in scope, ambition and artistry, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki’s’ 2020-2021 survey exhibition of Māori contemporary art from 1950s to present day, Toi Tu- Toi Ora broke all attendancerecords and forged new ways of presenting and understanding Māori art. It was also the touchpoint for a critical conversation about who should lead an…

In 2010, the National Government signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, joining more than 140 other countries; in 2019 the Labour Government set up a working group tasked with creating a plan to realise that commitment. The result is He Puapua, a discussion document whose title refers to the break between waves and evokes th…

Of 2021 Nobel Prize-winning writer Abdulrazak Gurnah’s book 'By the Sea', The Times said, “Rarely in a lifetime can you open a book and find that reading it encapsulates the enchanting qualities of a loveaffair... one scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment.” It’s a sentiment that could be applied across all his…

Russia’s waging of war in Ukraine brings back to Europe scenes of aggression and devastation not seenthere for decades. It’s one of the many instances of warfare in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, deployingboth traditional and thoroughly modern weapons. David Kilcullen is a former soldier and diplomat,a strategist, counterinsurgency expert …

Three generations of talented poets come together to share work from their new collections, and to talk with each other about the literary influences, inheritances and preoccupations that have informed their practice. What connects them and what separates them? Kevin Ireland brings us Just Like That: New Poems; Anne Kennedy, the 2022 Ockham New Zea…

There’s no such thing as a new idea, but what happens when your writing draws on the people in your life – and what happens when they don’t want to be written about? Taking as inspiration the ‘Bad Art Friend’ tussle over telling someone else’s story that dominated literary conversations in the US last October, join: Madeleine Chapman, editor of 'Th…

Clementine Ford is one of Australia’s most fearless feminists, and possibly one of its most provocative. The author of the best-selling 'Fight Like A Girl' and 'Boys Will Be Boys' has been an ardent champion for girls and women, a fierce critic of toxic masculinity, and the target of extraordinary vitriol – which, from time to time, has elicited in…

From the pen of historical fiction doyenne Jenny Pattrick, one of this country’s bestselling novelists with books including 'The Denniston Rose' and 'Heart of Coal', comes this year’s 'Harbouring'. The story begins in 1839 as Welsh foundry worker Huw Pengellin embarks with his family on a journey of hope, enticed by Colonel Wakefield’s plans to tak…

“A gripping study of the collateral damage caused by government decision making in war... an expertly researched study of government duplicity,” said The Australian of Stephen Davis’ book Operation Trojan Horse. In 1990 British Airways Flight 149 departed Heathrow airport, destined for Kuala Lumpur. Instead it stopped to refuel in Kuwait as Iraqi t…

Meet the disruptors: Māori journalists helping to lead and shape more nuanced conversation on the issues of the day through a Māori lens. Exploring questions of media power and influence, our line-up includes long-time Radio Waatea host and 'E-Tangata' writer Dale Husband (Ngāti Maru) alongside three fearless wāhine broadcasters and writers: Mihing…

In A.C. Grayling’s view, three of the biggest challenges facing the world today are climate change, the rate of development in high-impact technologies and the global deficit of social and economic justice. He contends that our problems and our technologies are currently outstripping our moral and political capacity to deal with them. In this talk …

Mohamed Hassan’s life has taken him from Cairo to New Zealand and on to Istanbul and London, covering the Middle East, Turkey and Asia Pacific as a journalist. Through it all he has developed a keen eye for questions of identity and culture, which he beautifully brings to bear in his non-fiction essay collection 'How to Be a Bad Muslim'. Ranging ac…

In the gladiatorial arena of film direction, where women have often been treated as invisible, New Zealand auteur Jane Campion has blazed a pioneering trail. The first woman to win the Palme d’Or for The Piano, and the second to ever be nominated for a directing Oscar, Campion’s latest triumph is The Power of the Dog, inspired by Thomas Savage’s 19…

Sociologist Joanna Kidman (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa) and historian Vincent O’Malley make a formidable team, as partners in life and scholarship. They both contributed to the recently published 'Fragments from a Contested Past: Remembrance, Denial and New Zealand History', and co-lead the Marsden Fund project – 'He Taonga te Wareware?: Remembe…

Raised in the projects of Washington DC by a father born 35 years after the abolition of slavery and who was barred from school, Harold Hillman is an author and international business and leadership coach whose family legacy is just one of the experiences that have shaped his life. Attending college, where he first encountered white people, he obta…

She’s a global sensation – the bestselling Australian author of ten engaging novels including 'Big Little Lies' and 'Nine Perfect Strangers', both of which attracted Nicole Kidman’s interest and have been made into smash-hit television series. Liane Moriarty has sold more than 20 million copies of her books, the latest of which is Apples Never Fall…

Expect the unexpected from a sparkling showcase of talented writers in our much-loved Festival Gala storytelling event, now into its 12th iteration and still serving up surprise and delight. Eight writers each take to the stage to share a seven-minute true and personal tale, without prop or script, inspired by this year’s evocative prompt – Across …

Wāhine toa Lana Lopesi and Coco Solid aka Jessica Hansell (Ngāpuhi) join forces for a proudly strident hourof conversation on their latest books and preoccupations. 'How to Loiter in a Turf War' is a genre-bending work of fiction from Solid, one of Aotearoa’s fiercest and most versatile artists across rap, art, film, performance and writing. The 20…

Abbas Nazari was just seven when his family, fearing Taliban persecution, fled Afghanistan, embarking on a desperate and dangerous journey that ultimately lead him to New Zealand. Crammed with more than 400 other asylum seekers on a sinking fishing boat in the Indian Ocean, they were saved by cargo ship Tampa in a dramatic rescue. After being rejec…

What is the job of a Poet Laureate, and is it more complicated for those that “walk in and out of several worlds each day” as the United States’ Laureate of Native American descent Joy Harjo so eloquently puts it? Aotearoa’s first Pasifika Poet Laureate, Selina Tusitala Marsh, joins the current and second Pasifika writer to hold the tokotoko, David…

After fleeing from Iran in 2013, Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani became a political prisoner, detained indefinitely in legal limbo in the Australian-run Manus Regional Processing Centre, Papua New Guinea. On a smuggled mobile phone, he chronicled six years of survival and witness, tapped out in Farsi in a series of single messages, and …

Every biographical portrait is a singular take on its subject, and Ockham NZ Book Award shortlisted 'Ralph Hotere: The Dark Is Light Enough' is writer Vincent O’Sullivan’s unique homage to his friend and fellow cultural traveller Ralph Hotere (Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa). Written at the invitation of the artist and crafted through personal conversations…

Oceanic women have always been creators – weaving lives into pandanus mats, printing knowledge onto masi and tapa, bearing tatau memory on skin, weaving words in boundless talanoa. A triumph of preeminent Pasifika women – Ockham NZ Book Awards winner Tusiata Avia ('The Savage Coloniser Book'), Selina Tusitala Marsh ('Mophead Tu') and Ockham longlis…