Saturday, May 12, 2012

AWRF - Colenso: Peter Wells


Siobahn Harvey reports from the Festival

Saturday May 12th – 10am – 11 am
Lower NZI Room, Aotea Centre

The strength of any literary festival lies on the performances given on its smaller stages as much as those delivered on its larger ones. There, on those smaller stages, the best literary festivals showcase discussion and debate as stimulating as audiences find in the bigger arenas. 
In this vein, Colenso: Peter Wells certainly reminded its audience of the power of this year’s AWRF. Essentially this was ‘An Hour with…’ the distinguished memoirist, novelist and co-festival director, Wells as he discussed his most recent book, The Hungry Heart – Journeys with William Colenso (Vintage, 2011).

Until recently the former head of Bethune at Webb’s, the rare book department at Webb’s Auctions, Francis McWhannell chaired this session. He kicked it off with a well worded introduction of Wells, and then initiated discussion by asking Wells to talk about his genesis of his book (a move to Napier, Colenso’s connection and notoriety in the Art-Deco capital of the world…) as well as background Colenso’s life.

Thereafter, McWhannell took a back-seat and allowed Wells to speak in his quiet but commanding manner about the influence of both Bagnall and Peterson’s 1948 biography William Colenso, his Life and Journey, and of The New Yorker on Wells’ crafting of his book. In terms of the former, Wells spoke about how the earlier biography’s charting of Colenso’s printing and tramping enriched his own research. While, of the latter, it was The New Yorker’s articles’ ability to present profound subject matter in a stimulating and accessible manner that, Wells explained, he sought to replicate.

Other topics discussed included the tortures endured by Colenso’s wife, Colenso’s advocacy for Maori during the signing of the Treaty of the Waitangi and beyond, and the sway of what Wells eloquently called “the glittering consumer age arriving” at the edges of the world like New Zealand upon Maori-Pakeha relations at the time.

The session closed with Wells’ gently reading part of a chapter and a reproduced letter from the biography as well as questions from the audience about Colenso’s Maori child Wiremu, his mother, Rebecca and the diaspora of Colenso’s descendants. Wells tempted the audience by revealing that he’s like to do a future book about Wiremu.

This session reached about two-third capacity. Given the quality of this understated but authoritative session, those empty seats deserved to be filled.

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