Yesterday, we published an essay by novelist Lloyd Jones lamenting the change in New Zealand’s book culture. Today, Alie Benge responds with a passionate defence of the modern NZ library. Lloyd Jones is worried. He couldn’t find the New Zealand fiction section in Tūranga library, and now the walls are crumbling. New Zealand’s literary scene … Read more
The reading and writing ecosystem in NZ is broken – and I blame myself and other writers of my generation who have not fought for its patch, writes Lloyd Jones. I was in Christchurch last week when a friend said excitedly, “I have to take you to the new city library. It is magnificent.” Now … Read more
Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh tells of the time she went swimming in deep, deep water with novelist Lloyd Jones at Byron Bay. The first time I meet Lloyd Jones is nearly my last. He’d promised me breakfast and a dip near Captain Cook’s Lookout – I should’ve suspected something then. Indigenous encounters and all. We … Read more
Two refugees are shut in a small cage and fed through a hole in the wires: Stephanie Johnson reviews The Cage, the claustrophobic, dystopian novel by Lloyd Jones. The back cover blurb for The Cage describes the contents as “a profound and unsettling fable”. It’s a little-known fact that very often writers themselves pen these descriptions … Read more
He’s the author of the lauded and prize-winning novel Mister Pip, but Lloyd Jones is even prouder of his son Avi, who this week was crowned winner of Survivor NZ. Until the age of nine or ten, he was a fat little bugger. When he was seven he asked to do the fun run around … Read more