More Margaret Mahy Magic
The multi-award-winning author, who was first published and praised in the United States over 30 years ago, has had her books translated into 15 languages. She has won literary prizes in the UK, Italy…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
“For You to See Our World the Right Way Round”
Allen Curnow, one of New Zealand’s great 20th-century writers and poets, has died in Auckland. Daily Telegraph: “regarded by many as New Zealand’s greatest poet” Curnow helped define a separate NZ identity in verse,…
The Fox Boy
The 19th-century studio portrait of a young Maori boy aged five or six, dignified but standing taut and uncommunicative, captured the imagination of New Zealand writer Peter Walker, The result was The Fox Boy…
Publishing Gem
Author Fay Weldon, who spent her childhood in New Zealand, has divided the literary world with her latest novel, The Bulgari Connection. It’s sponsored by the Italian jewellery company in what Weldon describes as…
Booker long-list Graced
Kiwi author Patrica Grace’s Dogside Story about an East Coast Maori township makes the long-list for the much-vaunted Booker Prize, shunting aside Salman to join such luminaries as Beryl Bainbridge, Peter Carey, Ian McEwan,…
Time-out: critics Knox-ed over
Elizabeth Knox’s career and upcoming bovine noir tale gets talked up and produces another fine vintage according to the passing feet of Time: “Measured by the beat of an angel’s wing, his [Vintner’s Luck…
“Erotic, hyper-imaginative fiction”
Elizabeth Knox’s Black Oxen is “lush, dark and puzzling,” as well as “startling and strangely satisfying”.
Underground S&M
Q&A with Emily Perkins, including her worst fear – “it’s a tie between black-water rafting and those SM zip masks. So I guess being on a black-water raft with everyone wearing those masks would…
Perkins short cuts to praise
The Guardian Review draws comparisons between Perkins’s tale of small town angst and the American master of the form: “Perkins has wonderfully light touch; she is a master of dialogue and plain speech, a…
Brits take to New Girl
Emily Perkins’s The New Girl: “The atmosphere of summer, youth and restlessness in a social backwater is strong, as is the projection of Miranda’s intriguing personality and its effect on Julia, her brightest pupil….
The Fox Boy
Comment on Peter Walker’s “fascinating” biography of William Fox Omahuru, the Maori boy abducted to be raised by Sir William Fox, future New Zealand PM. A tale of colonialism told with “doggedness, intelligence and…
Emily’s choice
British-based New Zealand writer Emily Perkins sat on the all-powerful all-girl jury for the Orange Prize, Britain’s major literary award for women only. Also, Perkins comments on the double jury battle of the sexes controversy…
The new girl
Emily Perkins is “an adventurous writer” whose recent novel, The New Girl is an “ambitious work, rich with creative tension”, and a “huge leap” for a writer whose first two books met with critical…
Scholar honoured
New Zealand novelist, poet, critic and scholar Professor Karl Stead awarded an honorary doctorate by Bristol University.
Thought for Today
“I do believe one ought to face facts. If you don’t they get behind you and may become terrors, nightmares, giants, horrors. As long as one faces them one is top dog.” –
Life full of words
Alison Waley, Hokitika-born poet, artist and writer died aged 100. Most famous for her marriage to Arthur Waley, Waley also had “strength of purpose and character, and a way with words, written and spoken,…
Get it right
In the unsettled paradise that is the Pacific, accuracy and local knowledge are a reporter’s only hope says seasoned island-hand, New Zealand journalist David Robie.
A day in the life
Margaret Mahy’s 24 Hours confirms her place among the “world’s best”. Her books for young adults “are not easy reads, but they are hugely rewarding, emotionally and intellectually”. Also, Mahy at The Hub…
Edgey writing gets richer
Las Vegas casino-king and edge-devotee Glenn Schaeffer has established what will be New Zealand’s richest literary prize, a biennial award of $60,000 to a new writer of literary merit. Schaeffer wants to bring writing from…
Memoirs from the Edge
NZ-edged novelist Fay Weldon sits down to write her memoirs – “All they do is make you self-centered,” she says.
Inside the Frame
Michael King’s biography of Janet Frame, “laureate of the musing inner-self,” is “elegantly written, densely researched and remorselessly long” – but does it over-expose its subject?
Knox them out
The Vintner’s Luck takes the Tasmanian Pacific Region Prize, Australasia’s richest literary prize. “There’s all this stuff in Vintner about anxiety and authenticity that’s very New Zealand,” says author Elizabeth Knox, noting that, like…
More Knox
“Very different and very daring” – Auckland University Professor Albert Wendt. “For a New Zealander to win an Australian prize seems absolutely incredible,” says Knox. “The only time we can ever get…
Novel tourism
Ngaio Marsh is among the few mystery writers whose houses merit preservation as “literary shrines”.
Writer’s birthday
The 13 of March is the birthday of novelist, Sir Hugh Walpole, born in Auckland in 1884.
Double life
UK Poet Charles Boyle’s The Age of Cardboard and String features “a poet who leads a double life in England and New Zealand”.
Still sailing
Ian Tew’s soon to be published In Grandfather’s Wake includes an account of finding Grandpa Graham’s old yacht “in full commission” in New Zealand.
Kraus purposes
“If women have failed to make ‘universal’ art because we’re trapped within the ‘personal,’ why not universalize the ‘personal’ and make it the subject of our art?” asks Edge-thinker Chris Kraus.
The authors’ luck
The selection of New Zealand novels Baby No-Eyes, The Vintner’s Luck and Believers to the Bright Coast on the short list of six for the new A$40,000 Tasmanian Pacific Region Prize for best novel…
Janet and John Revamped
Janet and John, the New Zealand-authored, internationally successful learn-to-read books of the fifties and sixties are making a come-back in ethnically-inclusive, non-sexist but still easy-to-read versions.
Domestic goddess
Christmas brings out the “Nigella domestic goddess” in New Zealand lesbian-crime writer Stella Duffy.
Land Ahoy!
Karen Hesse’s teen novel Stowaway chronicles the life of Nick Young, a stowaway on Cook’s ship and the first of the crew to spot Aotearoa
Immaculate Duffy
New Zealander Stella Duffy, creator of lesbian crime-fighter Saz Martin, tackles God and redemption in her latest Immaculate Conception: “I think it’s ground-breaking to write about miracles as if they’re real. It’s not very…
Christina Conrad: edge poet and outlaw of the tribe
Noted poet Billy Marshall Stoneking writes about New Zealander Christina Conrad for art journal alicubi, locating the genesis of her expression in the New Zealand edge: “Conrad studiously disdains mediocrity, fashion and safety ……
“It’s Ok I’m Wearing Really Big Knickers”
NZ-Edged Louise Rennison, author of hilariously funny and best-selling novels for teens documents such existential provocations as angst ridden days, erupting spots and bickering with parents. Rennison spent her teenage years in New Zealand…
Kiss and tell
British politician John Prescott retains the edge bestowed by his starring role in New Zealander Fleur Adcock’s 1996 poem: “Our eyes had locked/we were leaning avidly forwards/lips out thrust…”
Murder on the Street
Shirker, penned by New Zealander Chad Taylor features a murder on Shortland Street – the place, not the programme.
Mahy magic
Margaret Mahy’s 24 Hours, her latest teen novel released in America, is “compelling and emotionally satisfying”.
Fearless storyteller
“At 12 she was carrying a gun as big as she was, fighting for freedom in the Hungarian Revolution.” Later, Anna Porter made it to New Zealand as a refugee. Now she runs a…
Motor Masala hot fave
Peter Riordan is in contention for the Asia-Pacific Travel writers’ prize. His book, Motorcycle Masala is the story of a journey around India on-you guessed it-a motorcycle. The award will be announced at the…
Multiple murders
Anne Perry, formerly Juliet Hulme of the Parker/Hulme case, tours her latest novel Slaves of Obsession in the States. Perry has authored over thirty best-selling murder mysteries.
Sia in America
Samoan New Zealander Sia Figiel reads from her second book, They Who Do Not Grieve (US edition forthcoming). Figiel won the Commonwealth Writers’ Best First Book Prize for Where We Once Belonged.
Golden Deeds
Catherine Chidgey, novelist and editor, won the Pacific Commonwealth Best First Book award for In a Fishbone Church. Golden Deeds, her second novel has been published by Picador, leading publishers of contemporary fiction world-wide.
Dogs of Auckland
Robert Creeley’s Dogs of Auckland sequence grew from the poet’s extended stay in his wife’s native New Zealand: “Isolation seduces and terrorizes” him. But at times, as toward the end of Edges, Creeley rediscovers…
Framing the truth
Wrestling with the Angel, Michael King’s bio of Janet Frame, has generated acclaim, column inches and voluminous sales in New Zealand and overseas. Stephanie Dowrick describes Frame as “(one of) the two great 20th-century…
Mr Parsons’ mystery
New Zealand-born thriller writer Julie Parsons featured in a British TV series, True Lives. She was filmed returning to New Zealand, the scene of her father’s mysterious disappearance all those years before…
Well done
NZ-bred Fay Weldon needn’t have the Rhode Island Blues over reviews for her latest book: “she writes thoroughly modern fables that throw light and cast doubt on the meaning and wisdom of contemporary pieties.”
Who is that famous writer living next door?
Michael King spoke about his authorised and hugely successful biography of Janet Frame at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. Frame a recluse: she writes under her own name, but lives under a pseudonym. Other Kiwi…
Starbright and the Dreameater
Kiwi author Joy Cowley gets a glowing review for her latest childrens’ book whose story “could be a mix of the ‘X-files’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’… The plot may be hokey, especially to…
Art and text:
In an ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Artist Corp) collaboration Kiwi writer Damien Wilkins offers a “rather beautiful piece of writing” to accompany an exhibition of paintings by ascendent Aussie painter Noel McKenna (the…
Poetic shock tactics
An extensive Guardian profile of New Zealand poet Fleur Adcock that elaborates on everything from her OBE, the end of her muse, her relationship with Barry Crump (“New Zealand’s answer to George Best or…
Sun, sea, sand and … guns: Palm Beach Hotel (Gaza)
New Zealand journalist Phil Reeveson, writing for the Independent, visits the chaotic and ‘screwed up’ Gaza Strip – the conflicted strip of land between Egypt and Israel. Including a visit to a Jewish luxury…
Stead and Knox star at Melbourne Writer’s Festival
New Zealand writers CK Stead “whose new novel has earned rave reviews in Britain and the US” and Elizabeth Knox feature among global talent including Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson, Zadie Smith (White Teeth), Alain…
Stories from the Diaspora
“I write to give voice to those who are otherwise lost or forgotten completely in Pacific literature: young girls and women.” Pasifika Press in New Zealand snapped up Sia Figiel’s where we once…
