Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers, and guests. This week: Nafanua Purcell Kersel, author of new collection of poetry Black Sugarcane.
The book I wish I’d written
I’ve had the feeling of wishing I had written something before, but it’s usually limited to a line, a paragraph, or a witticism. Then I read Bloody Woman by Lana Lopesi.I felt so seen and connected to the work, it felt like something I’d been wanting to write forever. It’s the one and only time I’ve come across a book where I wish I had written every part of it, an exceptional work.
Everyone should read
Out loud to others. It’s such a gift to read something out loud to someone, especially children. When my eldest son was a toddler he would ask “Mummy, read me a story with your mouth”. Seeing and experiencing in real time, the connection people have to a story or a poem is a specific kind of satisfaction and joy.
The book I want to be buried with
My teen diaries, nobody should have to read those without the satisfaction of watching me cringe.
The first book I remember reading by myself
In English – Little Golden Books, probably Mother Goose or Little Red Hen.
From left to right: the book that Nafanua Purcell Kersel wishes she’d written; her own book of poetry; and the book that made her cry.
The book I wish I’d never read
Diet books, especially the ones disguised as cookbooks or nutritional science. I love cooking and I learnt nothing from diet books except how to feel like I was failing at reaching some morally superior state of being which was completely at odds with my reality.
Utopia or dystopia
Dystopia, always and forever!
Fiction or nonfiction
Poetry, which can be either or both — “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant” Emily Dickinson reckons.
The book that haunts me
Heavy by Kiese Laymon. In this memoir, Laymon offers the simple and sometimes terrifying fact of his life stories and his blackness, with beautiful incisive language, deep reflection and astute socio-political inquiry. The tenuousness of his life is palpable and the experience, as a reader feeling that awareness settle deeply into my mind is what haunts me.
The book that made me cry
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I had to pace myself with this book because I cried real tears so often through it.
The book I never admit I’ve read
Fifty Shades of Grey. OK, so it was before the movie came out and the novel was still being hyped. I was shocked to find it on a bookshelf in Samoa, left behind by tourists and curious to see whether it lived up to the hype. I found it very, very mid.
From left to right: the book of best food memories; the book Nafanua never admits she’s read; and the book she’s reading right now.
The book character I never believed
Marianne from Normal People. Actually, Connell too.
The book I wish would be adapted for film or TV
The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin. This needs to happen asap, please and thank you.
Best food memory from a book
I’ve just finished Butter by Asako Yuzuki. The way that food and eating is described is the shining light through this novel.
Greatest New Zealand writer
Patricia Grace.
Best place to read
Call me old school but I really enjoy the lucky-dip and slight anxiety of waiting room reads, it’s like speed dating but with magazines and journals. I know I’ll likely end up reading something I wouldn’t usually pick up and I’ll read it with high intensity and focus in case my number gets called. I learn a lot, even from the NZ Fishing News at the local takeaways.
What are you reading right now
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. It’s dystopia at full volume, Black Mirror vibes, cool, contemporary, and disconcertingly close to home.
Black Sugarcane by Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $30) is available to purchase through Unity Books.
Keep going!
Just a handful of the authors coming to Auckland Writers Festival in May 2025.
Just a handful of the authors coming to Auckland Writers Festival in May 2025.
The Southern Hemisphere’s best attended literary festival (per capita) has just unveiled a packed 2025 programme. Here are books editor Claire Mabey’s picks of the very big bunch.
I couldn’t contain it to the traditional top 10 this year. And why would I with over 170 events to choose from? I love the Auckland Writers Festival. It’s huge. It turns the Aotea Centre into a hive. Books are the honey, people are the bees, and conversation is the buzz. You fly in and you rinse yourself in stimulating experiences and come out a little bit transformed.
What the Auckland Writers Festival does well, and does necessarily, is bring us international voices as well as showcase local conversation. Over a handful of days you can go to an event about Trump, catch a virtual event with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, see hundreds of kids in thrall to Andy Griffiths, spend Sunday evening with Colm Toíbín, listen to Nordic writers you might not have heard of before, and attend a workshop about writing grief. And that’s just one cut of hundreds: there’s so much on that everyone can have a different, personally tailored time.
Here are some of the events that leapt out at me – some for sheer entertainment and novelty, some for the kids, some for the times. I’ve noted where events are free, the rest are ticketed with details on the Auckland Writers Festival website. See the full schedule here.
A big night out for little bookworms
Friday 16 May, 6pm-7.15pm
“Our adult programme kicks off with an Opening Night Gala, but why should the grown-ups get all the fun?” See, this is what family and schools programmer, Gabrielle Vincent, brings to the party: a thorough and thoughtful programme for young readers. And it’s mostly free. This gala for kids is the first of its kind and includes a whole party of great talent: illustrators Toby Morris and Alba Gil Celdrán who will be battling (with pen and paper presumably); insanely productive and excellent writer Steph Matuku (Ngāti Tama; Ngāti Mutunga); Anders Sparring and Per Gustavsson who are jewel heisting or something thrilling and sneaky; honoured writer Gavin Bishop (Tainui; Ngāti Awa). The whole loopy night is hosted by Kura Forrester (Ngāti Porou), star of Bryn & Ku’s Singles Club. Definitely one to find a kid to take to.
Harriet Walter: All the World’s A Stage
Friday 16 May, 8.30pm-9.45pm
It’s Lady Caroline from Succession! The one who got to say: “I don’t like to think of all these blobs of jelly rolling around in your head, just, face eggs.” And for all those who observe, Harriet Walter is the best ever Fanny Dashwood in Ang Lee and Emma Thompson’s flawless adaptation of Austen’s Sense & Sensibility. A magnificent actor and author of She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said in which she fills in some of the gaps that Shakespeare left. Jennifer Ward-Lealand will be interviewing and we will be there hoping Shakespeare’s women get lines as good as Lady Caroline’s. More info online here.
Roman (Kieran Culkin) talking to Lady Caroline (Harriet Walters) in Succession. (Photo: HBO)
Pukapuka Adventures, Jessica Townsend and Andy Griffiths
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 May
OK, so three events. But three unmissable experiences for young readers and for those who read young. Pukapuka Adventures is a full weekend of events for kids – all free. It’s brilliantly curated and includes interactive sessions with Anika Moa, Gavin Bishop, Atamira Dance Company, Graci Kim, Sacha Cotter & Josh Morgan, and Olivia Tennet (Kiri & Lou) performing from Joy Cowley’s A Whole Lot of Silly. For older readers, Jessica Townsend (in an event on Saturday, 11.30am) is the genius behind the popular Nevermoor series: truly the most immersive, thought-provoking books I’ve encountered in a very long time. Surely there’s no parent on the planet unaware of Andy Griffiths (the Treehouse books). An event with Andy (who is on Sunday, 11.30am) is a festival in itself: last time I saw him he was lobbing marshmallows into the crowd with a badminton racquet.
Two excellent Aussie authors are coming to the festival to delight young readers.
Lemn Sissay: Let the light pour in
Saturday 17 May, 10am, free
Sissay is one of the most eloquent, compelling speakers I’ve ever seen. I’d recommend him to anyone – teenagers, too. In this event he will share four-line poems that he writes every morning as dawn breaks. It’s a years-long project that perfectly illustrates Sissay’s warmth, his energy and commitment to breaking the day.
Landmark LGBTQ+ Literature
Saturday 17 May, 11.30am-12.30pm
Alan Hollinghurst, Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku, and Torrey Peters in one event! This is a landmark grouping and one that brings together three absolute forces of fiction. Hollinghurst is the author of some of the most beautiful novels out there (The Line of Beauty, The Stranger’s Child, Our Evenings); Torrey Peters is author of Detransition, Baby; and if you don’t know who Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku is then I shake my head and direct you to here, and here. Spectacular poet and icon Chris Tse is chairing so there’s no excuse not to be here.
2025: A Billionaire’s Playground?
Saturday 17 May, 12pm – 1pm
In the immortal words of David Byrne, “And you may ask I yourself, ‘Well, how did I get here?'” But, like, how did those losers Musk, Zuckerberg et al come to have such power? The Spinoff’s own Toby Manhire will be discussing this very conundrum with philosopher A C Grayling, Rumaan Alam (Entitlement) and political scientist Marcel Dirsus (How Tyrants Fall). Terrifying but essential stuff.
Raja Shehadeh
Saturday 17 May, 5.30pm-6.30pm
We all got tired of virtual events over the Covid years, but they did prove a vital opportunity to commune with people for who it’s much harder to travel. Raja Shehadeh is a renowned Palestinian writer, human rights lawyer, and co-founder of human rights organisation Al-Haq. In this event, Shehadeh will beam in live from Ramallah to speak to Susie Ferguson about his latest book, Forgotten (co-written with his wife Penny Johnson) about hidden or neglected memorials and places in historic Palestine.
Asako Yuzuki: Butter
Saturday 17 May, 7.30pm-8.30pm
Butter was one of the books of 2024, a novel inspired by the true story of a serial killer who seduced her victims with delicious home cooking. But what I like about this event is that as well as conversation about the book (with Jean Teng), Sam Low will be live cooking. Anyone who follows Low on social media, or has seen him live, will know he’s an absolute natural entertainer and will lend a not-so-secret ingredient to an hour that already has plenty of promise.
Dark Tales Salon
Saturday 17 May, 9pm-10pm
I have long wished that someone would bring Queen of Latin American horror Mariana Enriquez (A Sunny Place for Shady People) to New Zealand. Thank you for your service Lyndsey Fineran (AWF’s artistic director) and your excellent taste. In this session, Enriquez joins Noelle McCarthy (who will be reading from her work-in-progress vampire book! If you’ve read her stellar memoir, Grand, you’ll know why this is exciting), Kirsty Gunn (Ockhams shortlisted for Pretty Ugly), and French writer Jean-Baptiste Del Amo (Animalia) to read creepy stories.
Three huge books will be accompanied by their amazing authors coming to AWF this May.
David Nicholls
Sunday 18 May, 10am-11am
The contemporary king of the romcom/tragi-comedy. (One day (see what I did there?) I’d love to see Marian Keyes and David Nicholls on the same stage. But it might break the world.) Sunday morning at the festival calls for the big guns and you can’t get a bigger gun than Nicholls, whose latest novel, You Are Here, was one of the most delightful reading experiences I had in 2024. It’s romcom with craft, heart and complexity. Michèle A’Court will be interviewing which is super pairing. Perfect way to being the final day of book hive.
Catherine Chidgey: The Book of Guilt
Sunday 18, 4pm – 5pm
Chidgey is one of New Zealand’s best and most prolific novelists and this latest book, in my opinion, is the best yet. I am terrifically excited to finally talk about it in May when the book comes out (this event at AWF will be the first of what I presume will be loads). Kate de Goldi will be interviewing which is a genius match: I could listen to de Goldi speak at length about literally any subject. She will be an incisive, generous interviewer and will be able to draw Chidgey’s brilliance out in surprising and illuminating ways.
Kōrero Corner
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 May, all day, free events
Slightly cheating here, but this in an innovative and rich corner of the programme that makes great use of Aotea’s lofty Level 5. All day Saturday and Sunday you can see international and Aotearoa writers in events that range from readings, to question times, to publishers showcasing what books they have coming up. Like a mini-festival within a festival you could park up, drink it in, and not spend a cent. Smart, accessible programming.
