New Zealand Listener - February 26, 2022

Kevin Ireland 1933-2023

Graeme Lay remembers his long-time friend and colleague Kevin Ireland, writer, poet, translator and wit.

'Nowhere else to go'

In 2012, Max Rashbrooke spent three weeks living in a Wellington boarding house, writing about the experience for the Listener. The place he chose, Malcolm’s, has since closed and Healthy Homes legislation has come into effect mandating insulation and heating standards for all residential properties including boarding houses and hostels. We are republishing Rashbrooke’s story from 2012 in light of the Loafers Lodge fire that killed at least five people on May 16. Loafers Lodge is not Malcolm’s, but it also housed a community of vulnerable people. A decade on, Rashbrooke’s experience still resonates

State of inertia

It’s the time of the Great Centrist Drift, writes Danyl McLauchlan, an era of “lost opportunities and gradual failure driven not by ideology but a lack of it”.

Arts & minds

Pressure on students to qualify for careers has seen the BA degree take a battering – but the results may not be as intended.

Matters of the heart

Igor Felippe’s groundbreaking research into blood pressure has meant sacrifices and challenges

Bloom of youth

The director of Oscar-nominated coming-of-age drama Close talks about how his own adolescence inspired the film.

Hostile territory:

Single women trying to forge new lives are at the heart of two trans-Tasman crime debuts.

Home truths

The harrowing history of a Jewish town continues to haunt modern Ukraine.

A saint for the ages

Finely woven stories spanning a thousand years revisit the eventful afterlife of an English bishop.

Running her race

A young woman’s athletic talent leads her through obstacles in sport and life.