Christine Leunens with Witi Ihimaera on stage during the Whanganui Literary Festival in 2013. Photo / Paul Brooks
Christine Leunens with Witi Ihimaera on stage during the Whanganui Literary Festival in 2013. Photo / Paul Brooks
It has just been announced that author Christine Leunens' screenplay, an adaptation of her upcoming novel, has been accepted by Academy Award-winning producer Mimi Polk Gitlin.
The Whanganui Literary Festival Trust is delighted because Christine is one of the festival's visiting authors. She had been invited to talk about hernovel, Caging Skies, which was made into the movie JoJo Rabbit by Taika Waititi.
Her latest novel, In Amber's Wake, will not be launched until February 14, 2022, just prior to the new date for the festival, so the Whanganui audience will be amongst the first to hear about it.
There will be much to discuss. What could be of particular interest is that Christine herself wrote the screenplay for In Amber's Wake, whereas Taika Waititi wrote the adaptation for Caging Skies.
Set in New Zealand during the fast-changing, tumultuous 1980s era of the anti-nuclear movement, Springbok rugby tour protests, and the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, In Amber's Wake is a powerful and passionate novel that shows the staggering lengths some people will go to for those they love.
"I was in Paris in July 1985 when the Rainbow Warrior bombing occurred," says Christine.
"I still remember how to me and so many others the Rainbow Warrior was like a beacon of hope in the grey mood of a Cold War, and its bombing had a profound effect on me.
"The current challenges we're facing - climate change, mass extinction, strained resources, pollution - made me want to revisit this period and the sort of volatile dichotomy it represented.
"It was fertile ground for me as a writer, allowing me to explore individual versus collective responsibility and conscience in a story of love and loss that I felt needed to be told."
David Cohen, book reviewer for New Zealand Listener, says: "Leunens is a practised hand at quarrying the strange and powerful."
While Jean Soublin of Le Monde said of her: "Leunens has the immense merit of surprising and captivating."
This latest novel will be no exception.
New dates for the Whanganui Literary Festival are February 16-27, 2022, with the main festival over the weekend of February 25-27. Bookings at the Royal Whanganui Opera House.
