The Power of Community

The Mires by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) is a novel about the friendship between a Māori family and a refugee family who live with the disquieting threat of extremism, and is described by Behrouz Boochani as a book that ‘skillfully addresses the link between refugee lives, colonialism and climate change’. Makereti will join Palestinian poet Sara Qasem and author of Beyond Hope: From an Auckland prison to changing lives in Afghanistan, Bariz Shah, as they discuss the urgent issues facing each of their communities, and how culture can transcend borders, with peace and conflict scholar, Mahdis Azarmandi.