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Writers on Mondays: Night, Ma – Elizabeth Knox

One of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most acclaimed writers, Elizabeth Knox, discusses her incredible memoir of a calamitous time.

When | Āhea

Mon 20 Jul 2026, 12.15 to 1.15

Where | Ki hea

Rongomaraeroa, the marae, Level 4

Cost | Te utu

Acclaimed novelist Elizabeth Knox’s brilliant, unflinching, and beautiful memoir, Night, Ma, was 12 years in the making.

It tells the story of three-and-a-half years of calamity in which her sister suffered a psychotic break, her husband’s brother died by violence, her mother was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, and life as she thought she knew it came undone.

She appears in conversation with Ingrid Horrocks to discuss illness, family, care, love, how we story our lives, the art and ethics of memoir, and the loneliness of unutterable experiences.  

Elizabeth Knox, photo by Ebony Lamb

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