Irish novelist Colm Tóibín - author of The Master, Brooklyn and Long Island - appears at one of the festival's feature events.
Irish novelist Colm Tóibín - author of The Master, Brooklyn and Long Island - appears at one of the festival's feature events.
Award-winning, bestselling international names Colm Tóibín, Dame Harriet Walter, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Sir Ian Rankin join local luminaries such as Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku, Aroha Harris and Becky Manawatu in the just-announced lineup. Artistic director Lyndsey Fineran tells the Herald’s Emma Gleason what festivalgoers can expect this year.
Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki will return to Aotea Centre for six days this May, and the official programme for 2025 has been unveiled today.
Now in its 26th year, the 2025 festival counts more than 170 events - with 50 international names and 170 Kiwi writers involved – that will “bring writers from near and far together, and books to life in a whole range of dynamic ways,” said artistic director Lyndsey Fineran, who leads the programming team.
“I’m a big believer that some of the most impactful festival moments can come from writers and sessions you take a chance on, or from experiences in between the sessions, so we plan the festival with that sense of discovery, curiosity and fun in mind,” Fineran told the Herald.
“Just because some of the topics covered might be serious, it’s really important to me that book festivals are fun and lively spaces.”
Running from May 13 to 18 – with an opening night gala at Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre on May 15 - the festival’s “very ambitious line-up” features global literary names like Colm Tóibín (the top choice from Fineran’s “dream Irish author” guestlist), Dame Harriet Walter, David Nicholls, Trent Dalton, Ruth Shaw, Sir Ian Rankin, Samantha Harvey (author of the Booker-prize winning Orbital), Rumaan Alam, Lemn Sissay, Mariana Enriquez, Sayaka Murata, Yael van der Wouden, Asako Yuzuki, Titaua Peu, and Andy Griffiths.
Author of We Should All Be Feminists, Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, will appear remotely to discuss her long-awaited new book Dream Count.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will appear remotely from New York, to discuss her first book in 10 years, and Raja Shehadeh will dial in from Ramallah, Palestine, to speak to Susie Ferguson.
A dedicated Nordic Delegation counts Lars Mytting and Hanne Ørstavik from Norway, Swedes Elin Anna Labba, Anders Sparring and Per Gustavsson; Denmark’s Mathilde Walter Clark; and Antti Tuomainen from Finland.
One notable “get”, according to Fineran, is New Zealand novelist and academic Catherine Chidgey.
“Anticipation for Catherine Chidgey’s upcoming novel, The Book of Guilt has been huge both in New Zealand and internationally, so I’m very pleased we have the first public event for it.”
Other local names on the schedule include leading Māori scholar Aroha Harris, critic Diana Wichtel and academic Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku; Tina Makereti and Becky Manawatu; Nigel Borell, Deidre Brown and Ngarino Ellis; Dick Frizzell and Steve Braunias; Naomi Arnold and Joe Bennett; Monty Soutar and Shilo Kino; Dominic Hoey and Michelle Rahurahu; Jacinta Ruru, Angela Wanhalla and Jeanette Wikaira.
Award-winning children’s book author Gavin Bishop is the festival’s 2025 Honoured Writer, and Zech Soakai is a guest curator.
Laws & Legacy: Confronting Colonisation will see Aroha Harris (pictured) in discussion with Philippe Sands, Claire Charters and Max Harris.
The programme also features an array of international thinkers including The New York Times correspondent and “expert mind on US politics” Edward Wong, British-Zimbabwean journalist Georgina Godwin, and German political scientist Marcel Dirsus to help festivalgoers “make sense of a turbulent landscape”, with panels on everything from How Tyrants Fall to 2025: A Billionaire’s Playground.
“I’m alert to how internationally-minded New Zealanders are in their reading habits. I’m keen that I use my international experience to bring some fantastic names here, but it’s vital to me that we’re celebrating our local greats just as meaningfully – and that the programme has lots of opportunity for dialogue between the two,” Fineran explained.
“That’s probably my favourite part of the curation: creating conversations that couldn’t take place anywhere but AWF.”
The offering is intentionally broad, spanning poetry and music, crime writing, grief and loss, erotica, wealth and power, nature and the great outdoors, reo Māori and Te Tiriti, and LGBTQIA+ literature, as well as a range of audiences.
Twenty five % of the festival’s programme is free to attend.
“Our cultural diets and lives are so varied, and our programme should reflect that.”
This year’s festival will also see the 2025 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction awarded during Ockham NZ Book Awards – presented as part of the Festival on May 14, with finalists Tina Makereti, Kirsty Gunn, Damien Wilkins and Laurence Fearnley competing for the coveted $65,000 prize.
Tina Makereti's The Mires, Damien Wilkins's Delirious, Laurence Fearnley's At the Grand Glacier Hotel and Kirsty Gunn's Pretty Ugly are finalists for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.
Fineran is “so proud to reveal this year’s ambitious, wide-ranging and creative line-up” and she credits this year’s programme to “a very talented and passionate team’s hard work”.
Alongside the standard panel talks will be an array of more interactive events, including creating “A Waiata in an Hour” led by Anika Moa.
For younger readers and writers, there’s a three-day Schools Programme, Young Authors Challenge competition and the free Pukapuka Adventures programme.
There will also be activations outside the centre; pre-festival opener STREETSIDE will bring poetry and prose to Britomart; Aotea Square will host an assortment of free events, including a “people-powered” book factory. Inside Aotea Centre, drop-in space Kōrero Corner on the fifth floor will be running a range of events, including a Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon.
It’s a sprawling offering, and follows the success of the event in 2024.
Last year’s Auckland Writers Festival proved a hit; the 85,000-plus attendee count broke records, and on-site book sales were 50% up on 2023.
Artistic director Lyndsey Fineran adresses the audience at Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tamaki in 2024. Photo / Michelle Porter
Does it point to an increased appetite for literary events and reading in general?
Fineran thinks so.
“Our time and attentions are pulled in so many directions nowadays that I think people really relish the opportunity for in-person connections and for quality books and conversations. It’s a balm in a frantic world,” she explains.
“The news cycle has never moved faster, and we’ve never had so much information (and misinformation) at our fingertips. Having expert minds to cut through the noise and offer informed views on some big topics is hugely appreciated by our audiences, now more so than ever.”
Putting on a multi-day literary festival isn’t without its struggles.
“Our location in the world will always add a few hurdles.
“Even if writers are keen to come, the fact remains that we’re a long flight away from many places, and you’re working to secure people who have packed diaries and many competing demands – so you have to make a compelling case and build good relationships to make it possible.”
Financing the festival also presents a challenge, with what she describes as a “general contracting” of funding for the arts.
“We’re lucky to have such loyal supporters – existing and new – at AWF,” she says. (ARA, Freemasons Foundation, Barfoot & Thompson and Ockham are among its leading listed partners, and there are a considerable number of named patrons in the programme).
“These are straightened times in the field, and what we create is a colossal effort by a very small but mighty team.”
Auckland Writers Festival runs May 13-18. The programme is available in full online at writersfestival.co.nz, and tickets go on sale March 14 at 9am.
