Writing This Pākehā Life
To tell a story through unreliable memory and the intense relationship between memory and desire.
Seminar Series: “How to write about a life: current (auto)biography and memoir in Aotearoa New Zealand”
Presenter—Alison Jones
Alison Jones, author of This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir (BWB, 2020) will talk about the process of writing this book. She considers the politics of writing about one’s life in our small country, which story—out of so many possibilities—to tell through unreliable memory, and the intense relationship between memory and desire.
Alison Jones is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Education, Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland. Her other books relevant to this discussion are Tuai: A Traveller in Two Worlds (BWB, 2017—winner of the Ockham New Zealand Book Award, 2018) and He Kōrero Words Between Us: First Māori-Pākehā Conversations on Paper (Huia, 2011) with Kuni Jenkins.