World Transformed

Author David Haywood describes the earthquake that destroyed his home and killed scores of New Zealanders in an eyewitness account for the Guardian. “The first jolt knocked me off my feet. A desktop computer landed near my head and exploded into parts. Every piece of furniture was moving. A heavy wardrobe thudded on to the floor beside me. The desk upended itself; my filing cabinet toppled over and blocked the doorway. In the kitchen I could hear crockery shattering, and books tumbling from shelves in the sitting room … Elsewhere in Christchurch there are those whose loved ones will never return home. The radio informs me that hundreds still lie buried in the rubble. Thus we must count ourselves among the lucky; it could so very easily have been otherwise.” Haywood wrote the critically-acclaimed book My First Stabbing and The New Zealand Reserve Bank Annual 21. He was born in Auckland.