The eminent authors featured in Voices of Aotearoa are:

Dame Christine Cole-Catley • Nigel Cox • Allen Curnow • Patricia Grace • Charlotte Grimshaw • Stephanie Johnson • Dame Fiona Kidman • Michael King • Elizabeth Knox • Bernard Makoare • Paula Morris • Rod Oram • Geoff Park • Vincent O’Sullivan • Chris Price • Te Radar • Dame Anne Salmond • Maurice Shadbolt • Tony Simpson • Robert Sullivan • Ngahuia Te Awekotuku • Dame Marilyn Waring • Ian Wedde • Peter Wells • Maualaivao Albert Wendt

Voices of Aotearoa. 25 years of Going West Oratory

Buy the book from:

our publishers Oratia Media or Whitcoulls

A feast of New Zealand writing and ideas on offer in one volume transcribed from 25 years of the Going West Writers Festival.

Imagine a party at which two dozen of our leading writers and thinkers gather to share views on a provocative range of themes of national significance.

Voices of Aotearoa invites the reader to join those festivities, just as the Going West Writers Festival has been drawing audiences to Auckland’s west since 1996 to hear from a host of speakers.

This smartly designed hardback draws on the Going West Trust’s complete sound archive to reproduce edited keynote speeches from the festival — addressing topical themes in literature, politics, the environment, culture, personal lives and national identity.

On the menu are thought-provoking essays from the likes of Michael King and Maurice Shadbolt, personal reflections from Dame Fiona Kidman and Maualaivao Albert Wendt, poetry and song from Allen Curnow and Robert Sullivan, satire from Stephanie Johnson and Te Radar, and much more in between.

Bookmarking the essays are a retrospective on the festival by Going West Trust chair Naomi McCleary, and a postscript about adapting to the Covid-19 era from current festival director James Littlewood.