Aratoi will host Angie Chen, Director of the movie One Tree Three Lives for its Wairarapa premiere.
One Tree Three Lives – an intimate film on the novelist Hualing Nieh Engle, who has been a major influence on generations of writers in the Chinese Diaspora, and beyond. The director has known the author and her family since the Seventies.
At times sad, at times funny, the film reveals a woman of unusual charisma, integrity and determination, and a person in continual exile.
Interviews with 26 writers present a lively variety of views and anecdotes.
Hualing Nieh Engle calls herself a tree, with roots in China, the trunk in Taiwan, and the many leaves in Iowa, USA. Born and raised in wartime China, she left Wuhan in 1949 for peace in Taipei, and then left for love in 1964 to the United States. She is the author of 24 books of fiction and non-fiction, which have been translated into various languages. She also initiated the International Writing Program in Iowa, USA – a world-renowned platform for writers since 1967. The co-founder was her now deceased husband, the poet Paul Engle.
One Tree Three Lives is also their love story, a novelist and poet who created a strong and visible love.
One Tree Three Lives will play in the foyer of Aratoi on Sunday 1st September 2013 at 6pm.
Angie Chen is sponsored by the Hong Kong Festival New Zealand.