U.S. author top attraction

Press, 28 December 1989, Page 2

U.S. author top attraction

Auckland

An American author, Alex Haley, will be a leading attraction at the International Festival of the Arts writers’ and readers’ week in Wellington in March. Haley’s book “Roots,” tracing the history of a black American family from slavery to modern times, was the biggest best seller in American publishing history. Haley was invited to New Zealand as part of the Government’s Living Treasures programme for 1990. It will be his third visit.

He spent several weeks here while serving on a United States

ship during World War 11, and stopped off briefly in December, 1987, during a Pacific cruise. Tama Janowitz, another American to achieve screen success with her writing, will also attend. A film based on her “Slaves of New York” story collection was a cult success this year.

A British writer, lan McEwan, author of “Concrete Garden” and the film, “Ploughman’s Lunch,” will launch his new book during the week.

Other participants include an English novelist, Angela Carter, “The Times” chief literary critic,

James Fenton, a Tongan writer, Epeli Hau’ofa, a New Delhi-born novelist, Gita Mehta, and her husband, Sonny Mehta, who is editor-in-chief of an American publishing house, Alfred A. Knopf, the winner of the Malcolm X Fiction Award, Caryl Phillips, from St Kitts, Festus lyayi from Nigeria, and an Australian, Helen Garner, author of “Monkey Grip.”

New Zealand writers will include Keri Hulme, Witi Ihimaera, Maurice Shadbolt, Stevan EldredGrigg, Alastair Campbell, Bub Bridger, James Belich and Marilyn Duckworth.