Author Witi Ihimaera was quizzical at the official launch of the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival last night, posing the question: where is New Zealand literature heading?
The New Zealand Book Council chose this year's festival to stage its annual lecture and Ihimaera asked about 200 people in the Regent Theatre to share their definitions of New Zealand literature, its characteristics and what it must have to qualify.
''A New Zealand setting? A New Zealand character? A recognisable voice?''
He talked of the impact of the digital revolution and although he wrote on an iPad, he disliked modern technology.
His declaration ''I don't do Twitter'' was cheered.
The former Burns Fellow asked the audience which three New Zealand writers should be in every New Zealand home, and which South Island writers should be in every Dunedin home?
''Do any of your lists include non-national, commercial, literature specialists? If not, what does that say of our willingness to widen our reading to New Zealand literature?''
The last subversive New Zealand novel was the 1990 book Once Were Warriors, he said.
''What has happened to that great dissident New Zealand voice? Although we are, fortunately, not hostage to the problems that inflict the wider world - migration, terrorism, religious conflicts, poverty - that of itself should not keep us from addressing those issues in our fiction.''
He paid tribute to Otago and Southland writers, past and present, and the ''splendid'' festival.
''It's a pity, though, you are so far south of the Bombay Hills, where you are of little relevance or importance,'' he joked.
He concluded: ''I said at the beginning that I proposed this topic and ever since I wish I hadn't. I've been going round and round in circles, and I hope I haven't made you too giddy but let me try to land on a square.
''First, it seems to me that over the past three decades New Zealand has embarked upon, albeit unconsciously, the grand joining of bloodlines, genealogies and histories - how fantastic that has been.''
