Hosted by John Campbell, some of Word Christchurch's most distinguished writers respond to the theme of courage: Behrouz Boochani, Laura Jean McKay, and Witi Ihimaera. The second of two hours.

Hosted by John Campbell, three distinguished writers share stories created for this event. Their narratives are deeply revealing about the authors' own lives, but also the state of Aotearoa New Zealand

Listen to Witi Ihimaera, Laura Jean McKay, and Behrouz Boochani reading stories in the company of John Campbell at Word Christchurch 2020

Highlights of the session

Behrouz Boochani

Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani was relieved to be granted refugee status in New Zealand in August 2020. He had spent six years in detention in Papua New Guinea after unsuccessfully seeking asylum in Australia. At that time he said it had been a long journey to get to this point and a struggle dealing with systems that deprived him of basic human rights.

I should say something based on my experience.

It is my understanding that courage is very related to hopelessness. When you are like that you can do dangerous things. You can take risks. But for me, my understanding of bravery is that it's really difficult in this complicated world to stay human.

To be honest, to keep your principles. It's very, very difficult.

The bravest people are those who still stand up for humanity, who still keep these principles alive. It's very difficult to be like that. My experience here when I got freedom it became big news and it was very difficult to say no to some offers.

For example, I never looked at my story as a personal story, or a commercial story. I never wanted to be a celebrity. It's easy to be this.

I have been struggling to not let those people - this capitalist system - reduce this tragedy which is not my tragedy (it's a bigger story) to this culture that I'm talking about. It's very difficult.

Still, I am struggling, but I am not sure if I became part of the system or not. In some ways, I became a part of the system. It's very difficult, a very complicated thing, but that is my understanding of bravery.

Laura Jean McKay

The full text of Laura's story is available on The Spinoff

To be honest, I begged her not to go. I wasn't considering how she'd lost her ability to move or that she'd been here for 93 years and her last sentence was "I've had just about enough of this."

I said, "Nanna, don't leave me here." I meant to add "alone". She gave me a look that was the very definition of world-weary…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details