Narrative Threads: Airini Beautrais and David Coventry

In her essay collection The Beautiful Afternoon, Airini Beautrais explores history, literature, Star Wars, sea hags, beauty products, tarot, swimwear, environmentalism and pole dancing to deliver a virtuoso inquiry into how we become, and change, who we are. Exploring a mountaineering disaster in Kaikōura to a literary encounter in Austria, a country mansion to a volcanic archipelago, David Coventry’s Performance looks at the struggles of living with ME/CFS and is a vivid, at times disorienting series of journeys, stopovers and emergencies that take in the world. The two writers share a searingly intellectual and inquiring style and they join Alex Casey in conversation.