Fighting the cultural cringe - The Australia & New Zealand Festival in London

There was more to London's first Australia & New Zealand Festival of Literature & Arts than Julian Assange. Pity more people weren't there to see it.

By Paula Morris- New Zealand Listener

3rd June, 2014

London’s first Australia & New Zealand Festival of Literature & Arts took place at the weekend featuring a hundred “speakers and performers” in more than 60 events at King’s College in the Strand, although for parts of the media and Twitterverse it was the absence of a speaker – namely Julian Assange – that was of most interest.
Tim Winton, in ponytail and fleece top, was the opening night attraction; Clive James was the big drawcard. Panels abounded – on world wars, Antarctica, “Indigenous Issues”, historical novels, YA, “graphic storytelling” and crime writing. Literary doyenne Carmen Callil, the Australian-born founder of Virago, led a discussion on lost Australian classics; Margaret Drabble, Linda Grant and Stephanie Johnson discussed the life and work of Janet Frame.

Julian Assange in 2011. Photo/Chris Bourchier/Rex 

An eighty-something Fay Weldon was driven up from her home on a hill in Dorset so I could pepper her with nosy questions about her New Zealand childhood. John Pilger hosted a screening of his new documentary, Utopia. New Zealanders based in London, such as Fleur Adcock, Stella Duffy and Anthony McCarten, were joined by a jetlagged long-distance contingent that included Johnson, Witi Ihimaera, CK Stead, Charlotte Grimshaw, Steve Braunias and Sarah Laing.

Much was promised – or maybe threatened – of this festival by the biggish (Australian) guns shooting their mouths off on the website. “Dear England,” wrote Thomas Keneally, “We’re sending you a big present: our writers, film and music makers. It’s about time we got round to startling you, and the moment approaches.” Kathy Lette talked about the “opportunity to showcase our remarkable, original, quirky and bloody brilliant literary and creative talents”.
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