Winning writer heads to Frankfurt for global culture

10 September 2012

Winning writer heads to Frankfurt for global culture

Award-winning author Hamish Clayton is about to hop on a plane to Frankfurt to take up a month-long residency at the Weltkulturen Museum – one of the city’s cultural highlights.

The Weltkulturen is an ethnographic museum with a collection of 67,000 artefacts from around the globe. During his stay Clayton (who won the Best First Book Award for his debut novel, Wulf, this year) will be given access to the entire collection which spans centuries of world history and documents the cultures of Oceania, Africa, South East Asia as well as from North, South and Central America. Clayton’s residency means he’ll be staying on the museum grounds and will have 24 hour access to its treasures.

“It’s an extraordinary opportunity. I am going to be able to look at anything within the museum whenever I want – I’ll be able to look at artefacts from South America in the middle of the night – I can imagine it’ll have quite an influence on what I write. It really is the kind of thing that happens once in a lifetime”.

Prior to taking up residency in Frankfurt, Clayton will be taking part in the Berlin Literature Festival at the Long Night of Māori Stories (12 September), an evening of discussion about New Zealand writing from both Māori and Pakeha perspectives. The focus on New Zealand literature in Berlin comes as a result of New Zealand’s Guest of Honour status at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair where Clayton will be featuring in several New Zealand writers’ events.

“I’ve never been to Berlin, or Europe for that matter, so starting my trip at the Berlin Literature Festival will be incredible, but I am really looking forward to being in Frankfurt, especially during the book fair. Being able to read and talk about New Zealand literature alongside so many other New Zealand writers is pretty special”.

More than 60 New Zealand authors that are performing in celebration of New Zealand’s Guest of Honour status at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair.

To find out more:

www.nzatfrankfurt.govt.nz
http://www.weltkulturenmuseum.de/en
http://www.nzatfrankfurt.govt.nz/events/long-night-maori-stories
http://www.buchmesse.de/en/

ENDS

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