We're all very excited to hear New Zealand author Anna Smaill is on the longlist for the Man Booker Prize for her book The Chimes. I've read it, and loved it. It's a dystopia, yes, and also timeless and full of history, music and atmosphere:
Have just finished reading The Chimes. After is a different place.
— Donna R (@kebabette) March 28, 2015
You can hear Anna talk in Christchurch at a WORD Christchurch session Imaginary Cities, on Sunday 30 August along with Fiona Farrell, Anna Smaill, Hamish Clayton, and Hugh Nicholson (chaired by Christchurch Art Gallery's senior curator Lara Strongman). It's part of a Shifting points of view season in the Christchurch Arts Festival.
Masha interviewed Anna at the Auckland Writers Festival - read her interview Anna Smaill – from a writing musician to a musical writer:
The first impulse is the sense of time going past. It's almost having the experience of pathos in the moment, having feeling of something happening that is already gone. I've always had very acutely this feeling of things being transient and ephemeral and I wanted to capture them.
I definitely think the impulse to write first came from that. Of course it is also a way of working things out for me. Just to process my experiences, work out what I think about things. It always seemed a necessary thing to me. And also it's a great entertainment.
And just the other day Anna answered some quick questions.
Best of luck, Anna.
- Find Anna's books , opens a new windowin our catalogue.
- Listen to her interview on Radio NZ, opens a new window.
- Read a review, opens a new window about The Chimes.
- Check out her web page, opens a new window.
- Kiwi author Anna Smaill makes 2015 Man Booker long-list Morning report on National Radio New Zealand, 30 July 2015
- Man Booker Prize 2015 longlist
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