A star-studded international line-up, including Gloria Steinham and Marlon James, has been announced for the Auckland Writers Festival this year.
Speakers at the 2016 Auckland Writers Festival include, clockwise from top left: Marlon James, Janna Levin, Paul Muldoon, Omar Musa, Bill Oddie and Gloria Steinem. Photo: Supplied
Prize-winning writers and journalists from New Zealand and overseas will attend the 2016 Auckland Writers Festival at Aotea Centre from 10 May until 15 May.
The line-up, announced tonight, includes 150 writers who will host readings and debates over the six days the festival runs.
Topp Twins Photo: SUPPLIED
They include Marlon James, whose novel A Brief History of Seven Killings won the 2015 Man Booker Prize; journalist, writer and women's rights campaigner Gloria Steinem; writer, composer, musician, comedian, artist, ornithologist and conservationist Bill Oddie, who also starred in The Goodies; Oranges are not the only Fruit author Jeanette Winterson; and playwright Sir David Hare.
Janna Levin, cosmology lecturer at Columbia University, will also be speaking.
Well-known New Zealanders announced to take part in the festival include the festival's 2016 Honoured New Zealand writer Vincent O'Sullivan, broadcaster Alison Mau, the Topp Twins and award-winning writer Steve Braunias.
The 2016 line-up includes:
- Marlon James
- Hanya Yanagihara
- Gloria Steinem
- Bill Oddie
- Paula Hawkins
- Paul Muldoon
- Jeanette Winterson
- Peter Garrett
- David Hare
- Helene Wong
- Brian Turner
- Patrick Evans
- Fiona Farrell
- Susie Orbach
- Vincent O'Sullivan
- Liz Pichon
- TheTopp Twins
- Jane Smiley
- Alison Mau
- Jean Christophe Rufin
- Emma Sky
- Yossi Alpher
- Suad Amiry
- Steve Braunias
- Janna Levin
- James Sheard
Watch Janna Levin speak about her curiosity about the universe - as a kid, and now.
The festival will also include English bard Deborah Alma, aka the Emergency Poet, who will 'diagnose' poems to festival-goers in a vintage ambulance, King Kapisi go head-to-head against Australia's Omar Musa in a hip hop verse-off and a spoken word concert with Pulitzer prize-winning Paul Muldoon and local musicians.