Opinion – Gregor Thompson
11 years after her Oscar short-listed 2009 film This Way of Life , Tree of Strangers is Barbara Sumners first literary work. Her newly published autobiography is consistent with her previous work in the sense that it is exceptional.
Review of Barbara Sumner’s book: Tree of Strangers
By Gregor Thompson
I bumped into a childhood friend recently in a bar in Auckland. Ordinarily, I live in Wellington but I was on my way to Paris to start a new life. The recent surge in Covid-19 cases in continental Europe has necessarily put that plan on the backburner. Lily told me that her mother had written a book and that I ‘ought to read it. Not knowing what to expect, I came out the other side with an internal obligation to share what I had read.
By
Gregor Thompson
I bumped into a childhood friend
recently in a bar in Auckland. Ordinarily, I live in
Wellington but I was on my way to Paris to start a new life.
The recent surge in Covid-19 cases in continental Europe has
necessarily put that plan on the backburner. Lily told me
that her mother had written a book and that I ‘ought to
read it. Not knowing what to expect, I came out the other
side with an internal obligation to share what I had read.
Having previously
worked as a journalist, amongst other things Barbara Sumner
is an award-winning documentary producer. Sumner is a