'I want to make something beautiful': Novelist Carl Shuker's hopes for 2025

Wellington author Carl Shuker writes bold, brainy, stylistically adventurous novels – six so far, with the fifth, A Mistake, made into a major motion picture. His latest, The Royal Free, a dark comedy about grief, solo-parenting and copy-editing set in London, dazzled critics in 2024. But what does he want for 2025? He reveals five things.

Number one thing I want to see in 2025 has got to be stability, peace, and freedom for women in Syria after 13 years of hell.

Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Al-Jolani are making the right noises now, but the complexities, the attractions of revenge, and the multiplicity of players and sects will be monumental to negotiate. Lebanon’s struggles post-civil war are our best example.

I want to make make something beautiful. Finish the current thing I’m working on and at least start the next thing. I just turned 50 and I want this decade to be one of expansion and creativity. Related: Anna [Anna Smaill, Shuker's wife] is the Victoria IIML Writer in Residence in 2025 and I want to see the calm in her face when she makes something beautiful too.

God I want to travel again. Young kids, pandemics and work have meant I’ve been confined too long. Japan again? Pacific islands? Malaysia? Anywhere.

I want to find the right T-shirt, buy 18 each in black and white and assume my uniform.

See my children bloom, read, play cricket, ask questions, stay off phones, and learn about the world without being crushed or too troubled by its cruelty.