Alan Duff - A Conversation with my Country

Featherston Booktown is back!

Having been forced to postpone the Featherston Booktown Karukatea 2020 Festival in May, Featherston Booktown is returning with a roar, with a series of drawcard literary events dubbed Words in Winter from June through to August in Featherston.
The opening event will be “Aotearoa New Zealand, We Need to Talk” featuring three award-winning and provocative writers held over the weekend of 27- 28 June 2020.

Alan Duff, one of this country's most acclaimed writers, will be interviewed by Featherston Booktown Chair, Peter Biggs, about his recent best-selling book, "A Conversation with My Country" at 4:00 pm in the Kiwi Hall on Saturday 27 June.

“Never one to shy away from being a whetstone on which others can sharpen their own opinions," Alan Duff tells the truth about Aotearoa New Zealand as he sees it in his latest book, "A Conversation with My Country". It's a fresh, personal account of New Zealand, now.

Alan has been called one of our hardest-hitting writers.

“Following "Once Were Warriors", Alan Duff wrote "Maori: The Crisis and the Challenge". His controversial comments shook the country. A quarter of a century later, New Zealand and Māoridom are in a very different place. And so is Alan – he has published many more books, had two films made of his works, founded the Duffy Books in Homes literacy programme, and endured ‘some less inspiring moments, including bankruptcy’.

“Returned from living in France, he views his country with fresh eyes, as it is now: homing in on the crises in parenting, our prisons, education and welfare systems, and a growing culture of entitlement that entraps Pākehā and Māori alike.”