Q&A: Gareth Hughes
Former Green Party MP Gareth Hughes has written the biography of former Green Party co-leader, the late, beloved Jeanette Fitzsimons. He answers our quick Q&A here.
1. How are you and what have you been up to lately?
Great! I’ve recently moved off Quarantine Island / Kamau Taurua, where I wrote A Gentle Radical, to Portobello, Dunedin, which makes getting the kids to school so much easier.
I’ve traded in the small dinghy for a yacht which is moored out front of my little cottage and has become my passion.
I’ve just finished up a year supporting the Aotearoa Food Rescue Alliance and started working for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance leading their work in New Zealand pushing for systems change.
2. If you were working in a bookshop, how would you hand-sell your book to customers? What would you say to convince them to buy and read it?
I’d say Jeanette Fitzsimons was known as the most-trusted politician of her time and she was a true political pioneer. Her life was full of interesting stories and high political drama. She was an inspirational figure and her example how to navigate politics with integrity and overcome adversity is needed more than ever today. She showed “politician” doesn’t have to be a dirty word.
3. What books (or other art/media) influenced you while working on this book, or generally in your life?
My favourite biographer and one of my favourite authors is Robert A. Caro. This formidable researcher is someone I often turned to for inspiration in this project. Caro shows non-fiction writing can be as beautiful as fiction. Starting out researching the book I was faced with a small mountain of paper and I tried to follow his example of “turning every page” and in writing it I aspired for the reader to want to “turn every page”.
4. What good books have you read lately?
I’m almost finished reading Richard Powers’s The Overstory and all I can say is wow! I’ll never look at a tree the same way again.
I enjoyed reading and admired the courage in The Mirror Book by Charlotte Grimshaw, and was glad to come across Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner.
For work I’m about to re-read Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth, which I’m looking forward to.
Buy A Gentle Radical: The Life of Jeanette Fitzsimons (Allen & Unwin NZ), $40
