Rūbarū*: Digital Series
* A Persian-origin word, now in Urdu and occasionally Hindi usage, Rūbarū means coming face-to-face, to meet, to be present and to present. In this series Aotearoa and international authors explore artistic resonances, writerly preoccupations, thematic obsessions and share the pleasures and struggles of the craft.
Series is now online until 24 December. Featured authors are: Ling Ma with Rosabel Tan; Sara Baume with Catherine Chidgey; Trent Dalton with Melody Thomas; Paige Clark with Emma Sidnam; and Claudia Durastanti with Michelle Rahurahu. You can purchase one at a time or the whole package of five.
“By day my father built houses; by night he wrecked marriages.”
Claudia Durastanati’s novel starts with a dramatic story of how her mother met her father, and quickly doubles back, telling an entirely different, but still dramatic story instead about how her father met her mother. The result is a crisscrossing novel about families, the lies we tell and those we believe.
Strangers I Know (La straniera in the Italian original, and translated into English by Elizabeth Harris) won the Premio Pozzale Luigi Russo and the Premio Strega Off, and was a finalist for the Premio Strega.
From Rome, Claudia joins Māori writer from Aotearoa, Michelle Rahurahu, to talk about her crisscrossing novel about families and the myths that families make, translating Ocean Vuong and F. Scott Fitzgerald, writing about being a CODA, and how language makes and unmakes us.
