Amélie Lucas-Gary, 2018 [fr]
A French writer is heading to Wellington this month to develop their work in New Zealand.
Amélie Lucas-Gary comes to Wellington less than a year after the publication of her second novel, Vierge.
French magazine Lire describes Vierge as "the story of a young woman who falls pregnant having never been with a man. As her unlikely virgin pregnancy begins, Emmanuelle, 16, decides to leave her hometown, Saint-Denis, to undertake a forced journey on the roads of France...
"Carried by solemn writing and a great expressive power, Emmanuelle’s voyage plunges you into a bizarrely mystical atmosphere, at the crossroads of the carnal and conceptual, the fantastic and the metaphysical...”
Te Whare Hēra Wellington International Artist Residency is a non-commercial initiative run by Massey University’s Whiti o Rehua School of Art and Wellington City Council.
The French Embassy in New Zealand has partnered with Te Whare Hēra to bring French artists to New Zealand in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. The most recent French artist in residence Soraya Rhofir, produced an exhibition of works entitled Rough Rough shown at The Engine Room in August 2017.
Historic Randell Cottage in Wellington, New Zealand, has been a writers’ residency since 2001. In partnership with the Embassy of France, New Zealand-France Friendship Fund and Creative New Zealand, the Randell Cottage Writers Trust provides a six-month residency each year to a French and NZ writer respectively. The most recent French resident of Randell Cottage, Josef Schovanec, gave a series of lectures around New Zealand in 2017, sharing his experiences as a writer with autism.