Oh, to be a Writer, a Real Writer - Winners of the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield short story award

$14.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Reading Level: very good

Nuanua - Pacific Writing in English since 1980 by Albert Wendt (Editor)

$20.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Series: Talanoa Ser. | Reading Level: very good

This important anthology of contemporary Pacific writing in English is a successor to Lali, first published in 1980 and widely read and admired. Nuanua, like Lali, edited by distinguished Samoan writer Albert Wendt, shows the growing strength and confidence of Pacific writing in fiction and poetry since 1980. It includes work from new and well-established writers from nine Pacific communities: Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Samoa. The legacy of colonialism and the problems of development and political change are among the themes explored. ...Show more

The Faber Book Of Contemporary South Pacific Stories by C K Stead (ed.)

$20.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Reading Level: very good

This is the fifth in a series of collections of short stories from around the world. It offers examples from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Papua New Guinea and Tonga together with work from the longer established Anglophone literature of New Zealand. Many of the stories are about the island experience. ...Show more

The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield Volume 5 1922-1923 by Vincent O'Sullivan and Margaret Scott (eds)

$55.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Reading Level: near fine

Katherine Mansfield's letters are as finely written as her stories and prized by ordinary readers as much as by literary critics and feminists. The fifth and final volume of this celebrated edition reveals Mansfield's courage, wit, independence, and honesty in the final year of her life.

James K Baxter: Complete Prose by James K Baxter, ed. John Weir

$120.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Reading Level: very good

James K. Baxter was a great twentieth-century poet. He once declared, ‘In contradiction . . . I was born.’Sometimes at odds with God, often at odds with conventional society, he was at the same time a profoundly religious man and a fearless social critic who insisted that love and compassion were the on ly cure for society’s ills. His Complete Prose chronicles his life and times, his preferences and prejudices, his crises and turbulentoccasions. Its contents are remarkable for their range, coherence and passionate integrity.This four-volume set contains over a million words, in the form of reviews, essays, lectures, journal articles,drafts and rough notes, meditations, fables, stories, a short novel, interviews, letters to the editor, correspondence with friends and critics, and diary entries, covering Baxter’s entire career, from his first draft of ‘Before Sunrise’ as a teenager in 1942 to his ‘Confession to the Lord Christ’ shortly before his death in 1972. Edited with scrupulous care by John Weir, Baxter’s friend and the foremost scholar of his work, it also includes an extensive introduction, notes and references, a glossary of Māori words and phrases, biographies of key people, an index and a bibliography. The Complete Prose is a testament to Baxter’s huge contribution to New Zealand literature, culture and society.4 hardback volumes with cloth spines presented in a box. Original paintings on box by Nigel Brown.Volume format: 152 x 232mmVol. 1 – 776ppVol. 2 – 712ppVol. 3 – 584ppVol. 4 – 592pp ...Show more

To the Is-Land by Janet Frame

$12.00 NZD

Category: Literary biography | Reading Level: good

To the Is-land is the first book of Janet Frame's three-volume autobiography, described by Michael Holryod as 'one of the greatest autobiographies written this century.' It chronicles her childhood and adolescence spent in a materially poor but intellectually intense railway family in the 1920s and 30s. First published in 1983, it won the prestigious Wattie Book of the Year Award. ...Show more

One of Ben's - A New Zealand Medley by Maurice Shadbolt

$25.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Reading Level: very good

Who is Sylvia? The Diary of a Biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner by Lynley Hood

$12.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Reading Level: very good

For four years, writer Lynley Hood, was obsessed, or possibly possessed, by New Zealand writer and educator Sylvia Ashton-Warner. This compelling diary is a record of Hood's experiences and reflections as she pieced together the multi-dimensional puzzle of Sylvia Ashton-Warner's life for her award-winni ng biography, Sylvia!Hood candidly reveals the fascination and complexities of the biographer's search; the highs of extraordinary discoveries, the lows of confusion and doubt, the frustrations and intrigue of the New Zealand literary scene of the time, as well as chronicling her own development as a solitary, full-time writer. ,i>Who is Sylvia? brilliantly captures the unflinching spirit and energy of the biographer. It's an absorbing, intimate and delicious read - as only a diary can be! ...Show more

Landfall 240 by Emma Neale (Editor)

$15.00 NZD

Category: Periodicals | Reading Level: near fine

Landfall is New Zealand's foremost and longest-running arts and literary journal. It showcases new fiction and poetry, as well as biographical and critical essays, reviews and cultural commentary. Landfall 240 also features the winner of the 2020 Landfall Essay Competition as well as judges comments. ...Show more

The Writing Life - Twelve New Zealand Authors by Deborah Shepard

$25.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Reading Level: near fine

A unique, candid and intimate survey of the life and work of 12 of our most acclaimed writers: Patricia Grace, Tessa Duder, Owen Marshall, Philip Temple, David Hill, Joy Cowley, Vincent O'Sullivan, Albert Wendt, Marilyn Duckworth, Chris Else, Fiona Kidman and Witi Ihimaera. Constructed as Q&As with experienced oral historian Deborah Shepard, they offer a marvellous insight into their careers. As a group they are now the 'elders' of New Zealand literature; they forged the path for the current generation. Together the authors trace their publishing and literary history from 1959 to 2018, through what might now be viewed as a golden era of publishing into the more unsettled climate of today. They address universal themes: the death of parents and loved ones, the good things that come with ageing, the components of a satisfying life, and much more. And they give advice on writing. The book has an historical continuity, showing fruitful and fascinating links between individuals who have negotiated the same literary terrain for more than sixty years. To further honour them are magnificent photo portraits by distinguished photographer John McDermott, commissioned by the publisher for this project. ...Show more

Whole Men: The MasculineTradition in NZ Literature by Kai Jensen

$14.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Reading Level: very good

Making Ends Meet: Essays and Talks 1992 - 2004 by Ian Wedde

$20.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Literature | Reading Level: very good

Passionate, witty and erudite, these essays and talks disclose persistent questionings of the role of institutions in culture. One of New Zealand’s leading writers, Ian Wedde worked from 1994 to 2004 as a member of the conceptual team charged with developing the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa’s radical agenda. He came to be closely linked with the museum’s aspirations for wide popular appeal, public scholarship and contemporary relevance. Making Ends Meet provides a running commentary on the pressing cultural issues of that project and those years. Above all, Wedde challenges them to remain appealing, self-critical, relevant and unafraid; to refuse official sanctimony and to resist co-option to risk-free national brands. Subjects include the relationship of art and ethnology, the failure of late modernist art history, the construction of official culture, the intellectual history of European exploration in the Pacific, the ‘Pakeha Maori’, the relationship of archives and narratives, and walking the dog. Sometimes, these themes are focused in discussions of artists and writers including Tony Fomison, Ralph Hotere, Richard Killeen, Colin McCahon, Rachel Chapman, Alan Brunton, Peter Black and Rosalie Gascoigne. Many of the texts in this book were first produced as talks. These were the products of a busy professional life with little time for writing. Always, the voice we hear is relishing what it’s discussing: we can hear Wedde having a good time looking and thinking. First published 2005. Ian Wedde is an independent writer and curator. He has published novels, short stories, poetry and a previous book of essays, How to be Nowhere: Essays and Texts 1971–1994. Between 1994 and 2004 he was head of art and visual culture and of humanities at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. In 2005 he is the Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield memorial Fellow in Menton. ...Show more