INDELIBLE CITY: LOUISA LIM (2023)

INDELIBLE CITY: LOUISA LIM (2023)

Author: Auckland Writers Festival November 29, 2023 Duration: 1:00:53
In the opening paragraphs of Stella Prize shortlisted Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, author Louisa Lim is torn between journalistic neutrality and her love of Hong Kong as she is invited by guerrilla sign painters to grab a brush and help produce pro-democracy banners. An award-winning journalist who reported from China for a decade, Lim’s first book The People’s Republic of Amnesia – Tiananmen Revisited resulted in her being unable to visit the mainland again for years. Bridges burnt, she had nothing to lose. When the Hong Kong protests began over concerns about an extradition treaty, and escalated to a crackdown on freedom of expression, Lim found herself uniquely placed to capture the city’s untold history, just as it was being erased. Lim, a former correspondent for the BBC and NPR, is now a Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne. Lim shares her raw experience of ‘dispossession and defiance in Hong Kong’ with Sam Sachdeva, author of The China Tightrope. Supported by Asia New Zealand Foundation / Te Whītau Tūhono. FRI, 19 MAY 2023, 5:30pm – 6:30pm, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre.

The Auckland Writers Festival podcast is a direct line to the stages and conversations of one of the Southern Hemisphere's most vibrant literary events. This audio archive captures the live, unscripted energy of festival sessions, bringing the voices of the world's most compelling authors, thinkers, and poets directly to you. Each episode is a deep dive into the ideas shaping our world, from intimate interviews on the craft of writing to expansive panel discussions on history, politics, science, and culture. You'll hear novelists dissect their characters, historians trace forgotten narratives, and poets articulate the ineffable, all within the unique atmosphere of a live audience. This isn't a produced studio show; it's the sound of intellectual discovery and passionate debate happening in real time. The collection serves as a lasting resource, preserving the festival's dynamic spirit long after the final applause. For anyone who believes in the power of stories to challenge and connect us, this podcast offers a front-row seat to a celebration of words and the people who wield them with extraordinary skill. Tune in to be reminded of why literature matters.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Auckland Writers Festival
Podcast Episodes
THE SHAPE WE'RE IN: STEPHANIE JOHNSON (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:03
THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND FREE LECTURE Twenty-two years ago the Auckland Writers Festival burst into literary life, propelled by the ambitious advocacy of writers Stephanie Johnson and the late Peter Wells who wanted to…
THE 33: ANNE KENNEDY & SARAH WATKINS (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:37
A heartfelt artistic collaboration, The 33, brings together award-winning poet Anne Kennedy and leading New Zealand pianist and Juilliard graduate Sarah Watkins in a tribute to life, grief, writing and music. In 1973, af…
SPEAKERS' CORNER: THE CRIME OF ADOPTION (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:19
Writer and filmmaker Barbara Sumner, author of 'Tree of Strangers', argues that adoption laws, which continue to deny adopted people access to their own information, treat mothers as dispensable and children as interchan…
CROSSING THE LINES: BRENT COUTTS (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:17
Ordinary men living through extraordinary times, New Zealand soldiers Harold Robinson, Ralph Dyer and Douglas Morison shared a queer identity and a love of performance, living as gay men within the military forces during…
FALE AITU: KIGHTLEY & RODGER (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:26
Many ancestral currents, past and present, carried Pasifika peoples from Te-Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa to Aotearoa. Whilst each Pacific identity is unique, experiences of migration, colonialism, and courage are shared, and vividly…
SPEAKERS' CORNER: BEING MALE (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:33
Lawyer and writer Brannavan Gnanalingam is the author of the Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted 'Sprigs', a searing interrogation of sexual assault and masculinity. He argues that current cultural norms about being male c…
SPEAKERS' CORNER: THIS PĀHEHĀ LIFE (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:32
In the Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted 'This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir', Alison Jones contests that being Pākehā requires us to live in a state of “permanently lively discomfort with no single resolution...”, a…
NGĀ ORO HOU THE NEW VIBRATIONS (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:05
An exceptional evening performance brings together celebrated writers and taonga pūoro practitioners in a lyrical weaving of language and song. Arihia Latham, Anahera Gildea, Becky Manawatu, essa may ranapiri and Tusiata…
FAMILY DYNAMICS: O'BRIEN, GRIMSHAW, MEWBURN (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:34
Writing an honest and deeply personal memoir takes a certain degree of courage, and the journey can be fraught. In Lil O’Brien’s 'Not That I’d Kiss a Girl', she movingly recounts the fallout from her parents’ accidental…
LOVE LETTERS TO THE LAND: SANDERS & SULLIVAN (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:54
“A lyrical love letter to the land” is how reviewer Linda Burgess describes Manawatu farmer, poet and performer Tim Saunders’ debut memoir 'This Farming Life'. Further south in Central Otago, novelist, memoirist, poet an…