World Novel Week is celebrated each year from 13 – 20 October. First ratified at the 41st session of the UNESCO General Conference in 2021, it sets out to encourage appreciation of literature as an expression of human creativity, promote reading, and raise awareness of the important voice writers have when sharing their stories and championing cultural diversity.

For the inaugural World Novel Week 2022, Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature is pleased to showcase Winter Time by Laurence Fearnley, a story set in the South Island’s Mackenzie Country where summers are hot and winters harsh. This environment of extremes is a dominant force throughout the narrative, shining a light on Sustainable Development Goal No. 15 – Life on Land. The winter weather is hostile, rendering roads impassable and the old home freezing, with the fire offering little respite from outdoors. This absence of warmth has been a theme of Roland’s life, feeling as he does like an outsider and different from everyone else. Cocooned in a snow-muffled landscape, he is forced to confront who he is and who his friends are.

Laurence Fearnley is an Ōtepoti writer whose novels have received multiple awards. Her short stories have featured in journals and been broadcast on radio. In 2003 Laurence was selected as an Antarctic Arts Fellow through the Artists to Antarctica programme, and she has received numerous other awards and grants for her writing. Laurence was Robert Burns Fellow in Dunedin in 2007 and was named a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate in 2019. UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature mobilise to celebrate the first edition of World Novel Week | Articles