Friday, May 15, 2009

CAN YOU HEAR ME, WHANGAPARAOA
Auckland Writers and Readers Festival 2009


This was such a clever idea - a programme of readings from unpublished correspondence between two towering NZ literary figures , Janet Frame and Charles Brasch - and the organisers must have been delighted, and perhaps a little surprised by the size of the near capacity audience.

The six readers, three women & three men, read the correspondence starting with early letters concerning Frame's submissions to Landfall in the 1940's through to Brasch's death in 1973.
Can you hear me, Whangaparaoa? is the first line of a poem Brasch dedicated to Frame on his deathbed.

Well done whomever it was that came up with this idea. Might we see this material published at some time?

1 comment:

Vanda Symon said...

This was a fabulous glimpse into the lives of Janet Frame and Charles Brasch, and certainly highlighted the mischievous sense of humour of Janet! I felt I came away with a real taste of the characters of these remarkable individuals.

Well done Pamela and Denis. I too hope we will see more of this.