Auckland Writers Festival reveals full 2025 programme
Award-winning authors and global thought-leaders form a diverse line-up for the largest literary festival in the southern hemisphere.
Sir Ian Rankin, Samantha Harvey, David Nicholls and Colm Toibin are among an eclectic lineup of literary voices heading to Tāmaki Makaurau for the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival in May.
The festival, the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere, will feature more than 170 New Zealand writers alongside nearly 50 international guests in a week-long programme of events.
Audiences can look forward to author talks with British actress and writer Dame Harriet Walter, novelists Rumaan Alam (Leave the World Behind, Entitlement) and Catherine Chidgey (The Book of Guilt), as well as crime writer Chris Whitaker.
A lineup of international journalists and thought leaders will join for panel discussions on timely topics, including Trump: The Next Four Years, 2025: A Billionaire's Playground?, and Making Peace in the Culture Wars. Closer to home, journalist Anna Fifield and Māori scholar Aroha Harris will lead discussions on Te Tiriti and colonisation.
The programme is rich in translated literature too, with leading Latin American horror writer Mariana Enriquez, Japan's Sayaka Murata, Yael van der Wouden from The Netherlands, as well as writers from South Korea, France, Tahiti, Canada and the UAE appearing.
Festivalgoers can take part in 'Waiata in an Hour' with Anika Moa, enjoy unique cookery-meets-crime fiction sessions with Sam Low and Japanese author Asako Yuzuki (Butter), and attend readings and playtime sessions with beloved children's authors. Two digital sessions will also feature Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and eminent Palestinian author and human rights lawyer Raja Shehadeh.
The 2024 Auckland Writers Festival broke records, drawing over 85,000 attendees and increasing book sales by 50 percent compared to the previous year. It marked the start of a new era for the festival, which returns in 2025 under the leadership of festival director Lyndsey Fineran.
"My co-leader, Catriona Ferguson, and I were blown away by the reception to AWF24 and the incredible excitement for books it generated in those six autumn days in Tāmaki and beyond," Fineran said.
"I'm so proud to reveal this year's ambitious, wide-ranging and creative line-up - the result of a very talented and passionate team's hard work - that will bring writers from near and far together, and books to life in a whole range of dynamic ways this May."
A quarter of the festival's events will be free and unticketed, with public ticket sales opening at 9am on Friday, March 14.
