Our friends at WORD Christchurch have you sorted for a trio of literary events on Wednesday 16 November.
Want to hang out with the music milieu? The Needles and Plastic book launch is free.
Want to hear from Behrouz Boochani and Chris Parker? Buy tickets to both the Behrouz Boochani and Chris Parker events at The Piano and save!
Flying Nun book launch
From 5.30pm, Lyttelton Coffee Company
FREE! More info
WORD is pleased to support the launch on Wednesday 16 November from 5.30pm at Lyttelton Coffee Company of Needles & Plastic: Flying Nun Records, 1981 – 1988. This fully illustrated account of the label, the bands and the songs from 1981–1988 – the critical early years, when the label was based in Christchurch and getting records pressed in New Zealand. Vancouver-based writer Matthew Goody is here for the launch and will join WORD’s own Kiran Dass for a Q&A alongside Flying Nun luminaries Roy Montgomery, Bruce Russell and Rachael King (also a WORD legend!). Expect decks to be spinning afterwards. Free to attend!
Needles and Plastic: Flying Nun Records, 1981-1988
Freedom, Only Freedom – The Prison Writings of Behrouz Boochani
6pm to 7pm, The Piano, 156 Armagh Street
Book now $23 full price / $19 concession (+ booking fee)
Behrouz Boochani is no stranger to Christchurch, his first home in Aotearoa thanks to his award winning debut book, No Friend But the Mountains. Please join us to welcome him back with this second book, Freedom, Only Freedom – a collection of his writings combined with essays from experts on migration, refugee rights, politics, and literature. Translated and edited by Omid Tofighian and Moones Mansoubi, the book is a joint project by the same team who produced No Friend but the Mountains. Their long collaboration puts them in a unique position to bring these stories to readers and highlight the plight of refugees around the world.
Host Tina Makereti will discuss with Behrouz his tenacious activism, prison reform, the rights of refugees and more.
Supported by the Ngāi Tahu Centre at the University of Canterbury
Behrouz portrait image credit: Ehsan K Hazaveh. Book cover with thanks to Bloomsbury.
Chris Parker is Here for a Good Time
8pm to 9pm, The Piano, 156 Armagh Street
Book now $23 full price / $19 concession (+ booking fee)
Over the past years we’ve seen Chris Parker take out the Celebrity Treasure Island crown, craft his own crown out of felt during lockdown (which was then bought by the Auckland Museum), and show us his and his flatmates’ lives on Instagram. All the while, he was writing a book.
Join Chris, the most openly gay, unapologetically camp man to come out of Christchurch, with local legend and fellow new writer, Jason Gunn, to discuss his debut book of short stories, essays and musings – the pick-me-up book full of early 2000s Christchurch references you didn’t know you needed until now.
Presented in partnership with Allen & Unwin.
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