Writers show off their finery

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival
Aotea Centre
Until May 15

Writers and readers festivals are always a string of amazing encounters with extraordinary people. Writers seem to be a breed apart that spend their lives in cocoons only to appear at festivals in all their glory, showing off their finery.

This was particularly so at the opening NZ Listener Gala Night where eight writers put on a fantastic display. Each had been asked to respond to the alphabet in some sort of way.

Some used it as an opportunity to develop their stand up comic routines, others to carefully craft a story around a letter and some to contemplate the nature of the alphabet.

The American poet Rives told of his unconventional and illegal way of forging a C pass (replacing a D) for a certificate he needed to enter university while Fatima Bhutto reflected on the appalling literacy rates among Pakistanis, especially those in refugee camps where even learning the alphabet was a struggle.

A.A. Gill railed against the alphabet as he opined that it meant that he was required to write things and then appear at books festivals rather than just maintain his personal oral tradition.

His story was an account of his job as a food and travel critic and one particular lunch with the Masai where he had to drink from a gourd of blood. His description was hilarious and gross with those of a vegan persuasion in the audinece recoiling at his description of the event which ended with his ecstatic – “It tastes like steak.”

Fiona Farrell gave a moving description of the Christchurch earthquake and its effects on the city and its people while Victor Rodger had a witty story of surviving in a temporary role working for a large multinational organisation where one of the requirements was the ability to speak and write French when he had none.

On Friday, A.A. Gill’s hour and a half session with restaurateur Al Brown was revealing about a writer who has always been dyslexic and spent 20 years of his life on the dole as an alcoholic and a drug dealer. His transformation into one of the funniest and acerbic critics was a tale of luck, fortitude, bravado and a good family background.

His barbed comments were not only directed at his favourite topics but also at Al and many of the questionnaires from the audience whom he regarded as fall guys to his wit (in the nicest possible way).

Earlier in the day, Carolyn Burke reminisced through her new biography on Edith Piaf, punctuating her talk with songs by the singer and concluding with a video clip of one of her performances.

The Indian writer Madhur Jaffrey told of her circuitous rise to fame as a writer about Indian cooking via her long association with the film making duo of Merchant Ivory, starring in several of their films.