Awardwinning Author Discuss Wellington's Founding

Rare Opportunity to Hear Awardwinning Author Discuss Wellington's Founding Family

The New Zealand Book Council and Auckland University Press proudly present Wellingtonians with the rare opportunity to hear award-winning author Philip Temple discussing "A Sort of Conscience: The Wakefields", his extensively researched and powerfully written new biography of the roguish yet visionary family responsible for the early colonial settlement of Wellington, Nelson and Canterbury.

Temple’s research uncovered "lies, damned lies and history". "Fact was not only often stranger than fiction", he says, "but often pure fiction itself."

“They showed courage and vision; cupidity and stupidity; recklessness and ignorance; passion and compassion; tolerance and intolerance; such attributes and more that govern the behaviour of all of us.”

But undeniably, Temple found, they were and remain an indelible part of our colonial history. “We need to understand them to understand ourselves.”

Philip Temple will be introduced by eminent historian, Dr Jock Phillips.

12.10pm, Thursday, 7 November National Library Auditorium, Molesworth Street. $5 NZ Book Council members; $8 non-members.

Bookings essential. Please contact The New Zealand Book Council, email mailto:events@bookcouncil.org.nz

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