“Masterful, provocative” novelist visits Wellington

Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) is excited to host award-winning Australian novelist Charlotte Wood at one of its Writers on Mondays events this month.

Ms Wood will read and discuss her successful fiction and non-fiction work with IIML senior lecturer Emily Perkins at a free event at Te Papa at 12.15pm on Monday 24 July. Ms Wood will also conduct a master class at the IIML for creative writing students on the Master of Arts and PhD programmes.

“This is one hell of a novel,” “inspired, powerful,” and “masterful” are some of the accolades for Ms Wood’s most recent book, The Natural Way of Things, which won the 2016 Stella Prize, the 2016 Indie Book of the Year and Novel of the Year, and was joint winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction. In this allegorical and disturbingly true novel, young women find themselves brutally imprisoned in the desert, where they soon discover the sex scandals with powerful men that connect them, as well as the depth of their crisis.

The Australian newspaper has described Ms Wood as "one of our most original and provocative writers”.  She is the author of five novels and two books of non-fiction, including Animal People, The Children and The Writer’s Room—a recent collection of interviews with writers about their work. Of this book, critic Geordie Williamson wrote: ‘'For writers, an indispensable resource; for readers, a pure pleasure.” 

In 2016 Ms Wood was named the Charles Perkins Centre's inaugural Writer in Residence at the University of Sydney. 

 “Charlotte Wood is a thrilling writer whose work always pushes into new territory, full-heartedly examining the joy and suffering of life,” says Emily Perkins. “She’s published on a great range of themes, from family dynamics to cooking to misogyny, and has earned deserved comparisons to Elena Ferrante and Margaret Atwood along the way. Like those writers, she is equally well-loved and critically acclaimed, and we are delighted that Wellington audiences will have this opportunity to experience, in person, Charlotte’s insights on writing and the wider world.”   

The Writers on Mondays programme began this week and the full programme is available on the IIML website:

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/modernletters/about/events/writers-mondays

What: Charlotte Wood at Writers on Mondays

When: 12.15pm, Monday 24 July

Where: Te Papa, Wellington

Entry is free.

For more information contact Emily Perkins on 04-463 6905 or emily.perkins@vuw.ac.nz.