Chanwai-Earle, Lynda

[Photograph: Jan Kemp (2002)]

Lynda Chanwai-Earle (b. 1965)

Contents:

New New Zealand Poets in Performance (2008):

Details from a personal journal
Gasp

Aotearoa NZ Poetry Sound Archive (2004):

CD07

1. To Hastings with love
2. Details from a personal journal
3. Gasp

12 Taonga from the AoNZPSA (nzepc, 2004):

Gasp

Bio / Bibliography:

Born in London 1965 she spent a large part of her childhood in Papua New Guinea. She holds a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts and a Post Graduate Diploma in Drama from Auckland University. In 1994 Lynda published her first book of poetry, Honeypants with Auckland University Press. In 1995 Honeypants was selected for the Penn Book Awards and the New Zealand Book Awards. Lynda worked as an actor and script co-ordinator with Jim Moriarty’s theatre group Te Rakau Hua O Te Wao Tapu from 1995 to 1999, touring and creating theatre throughout schools and prisons around Aotearoa.

Ka-Shue (Letters Home) is New Zealand’s first contemporary theatre piece about the Chinese community, a solo show written and performed by Lynda Chanwai-Earle, based on her own family background as a Eurasian and a Chinese New Zealander. Ka-Shue was published in 1998.

"Ka Shue gives voice to the experience of a young Chinese New Zealand woman ... the staging is simple and effective ... the delight of a girl discovering her Chinese heritage is beautifully communicated ... a family saga of blockbuster proportions.”

The Dominion, 1997

Critically acclaimed, Lynda’s most recent stage production Fire Mountain (Foh-Sarn) is a play about young and new immigrant Asians;

“… (Fire Mountain) explodes into violent action and a fiery, tragic climax… a stunningly beautiful production …”
Susan Budd,
The NZ Herald 31.10.00
“… Ground-breaking theatre …”
The Listener, 29.10.00

Lynda is currently the Writer in Residence with Capital E, The National Children’s Theatre, developing her next play Monkey. She lives and works in Auckland as a Reporter/Director for the television programme Asia Down Under (TVNZ).