Events with author Rod Edmond

Rod Edmond is currently in New Zealand to celebrate the release of his new book Migrations: Journeys in Time and Place. The following events will be held in Palmerston North, Wellington, Carterton, Dunedin and Auckland over the next three weeks: Friday 3 May, 11am, Palmerston North ‘Wrongs and Rites: The curious afterlife of a nineteenth-century missionary in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu)’ Colombo Village 1, School of English and Media Studies, Massey University, Palmerston North Part of: Cultural Encounters and Re-Enactment in the Pacific: A symposium hosted by the School of English and Media Studies, 11am-3pm Thursday 9 May, 4.10pm, Wellington ‘Wrongs and Rites: The curious afterlife of a nineteenth-century missionary in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu)’ Stout Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington The official launch of Migrations will follow the seminar at 5.30pm. Please RVSP by replying to this email.   Friday 10 May, 5.30pm, Carterton  'Church and Community in Early Carterton: The Ministry of Rev Charles Murray, St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 1888–1898' Carterton Public Library Monday 13 May, 5.15pm, Dunedin ‘Wrongs and Rites: The curious afterlife of a nineteenth-century missionary in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu)’ Archway 2, English Department, University of Otago Tuesday 14 May, 5.15pm, Dunedin ‘Places that history can’t reach: using literature to reconstruct obscure lives in nineteenth-century rural Scotland’ Quad 6, Scottish Studies, University of Otago   Saturday 18 May, 2.30pm, Auckland 'Migrations From the North' Upper NZI Room, Aotea Centre, Auckland Readers and Writers Festival Migrations "This is my kind of book, and a book for any New Zealander descended from European immigrants, particularly from Britain. In a narrative that is learned, atmospheric and often gripping, Rod Edmond reflects on identity and migration with the penetrating insight of a still tenderly attached exile." Fleur Adcock. In Migrations Rod Edmond traces the journeys of his Scottish forebears as they separately made their way to New Zealand. The migration story begins with Charles Murray leaving Aberdeenshire in 1884 to become a missionary on the island of Ambrym. On the other side of Scotland, Catherine McLeod and her family had already abandoned their small coastal croft and sailed for Tasmania. Encounters in Scottish and Pacific villages, a reconciliation ceremony, visits to country churches in New Zealand, and the shock of a city’s history transformed by earthquake – all are woven into an exploration of ‘migration’, of what it is and what it means in our lives. Evocations of place are quietly infused with an understanding of the past, subtly shifting perceptions of identity for current generations. Emeritus Professor at the University of Kent, Rod Edmond has published in the fields of Victorian and postcolonial writing, and in the history and literature of empire. In 1998 he was the joint winner of the Trevor Reese Memorial Prize for Imperial History for Representing the South Pacific: Colonial Discourse from Cook to Gauguin. RRP: $39.99 ISBN: 9781927131466 Publication: April 2013 Paperback 240 x 170mm, 248pp Ebook edition will be released May 2013