Auckland Writers Festival | Waituhi o Tāmaki August 2022
Caroline was invited to chair the following session:
EXCAVATIONS
Secrets kept and pasts unacknowledged are the tantalising pursuits in two recent memoirs. Richard Shaw’s The Forgotten Coast charts a family’s history cultivated across Parihaka, Taranaki, farmland and the rooms of the Vatican; Alexander McKinnon’s 2022 Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted Come Back to Mona Vale unravels decades-old family mysteries held within the walls of one of Christchurch’s landmark mansions, then owned by his mother’s family, the Goughs. Together they discuss the emotional weight of the personal and national stories embedded in whānau and place, in conversation with Caroline Barron.