NZ POST WRITERS & READERS WEEK:

TWO HUGELY DIFFERENT PANELS THIS MORNING
BOTH INTERESTING & STIMULATING

The Perpetual Dream Machine – David Mitchell

Chaired by Australian broadcaster Ramon Keval whose huge experience in interviewing authors over many year showed through in her relaxed and polished exhibition of just how such sessions should be chaired, she was superb.

And so was her subject, novelist David Mitchell, author of Ghostwritten (1999), number9dream (2001), Cloud Atlas (2004), and Black Swan Dream (2006).
Not yet 40 years of age Mitchell has remarkably been shortlisted for the Booker Prize twice, has twice won the Commonwealth Writers regional prize for best novel, the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Costa Novel Award and others too numerous to mention.

Listening to this charming, modest and obviously very intelligent man in conversation one can understand why he is so successful and rated one of the finest among young British writers.


Secrets & Lies – Mayra Montero, Christos Tsiolkas & Patrick McGrath

These three writers, Cuban, Australian and English, all write in areas often regarded by society as taboo – rough sex, prostitution, sexual obsession, necrophilia, voodoo etc .
Chaired by Lydia Wevers, who had clearly immersed herself in their writing so extensive was her knowledge of their titles, the panel had a wide ranging discussion on the question of what was and wasn’t “sayable” for an author.

Both of these sessions were well attended with the spacious Embassy Theatre looking pleasingly filled.