Zealand Writer Research Articles

The Word Witch at Work in New Zealand’s School Journal, 1960s–1980s: Margaret Mahy’s Writing as a Reflection of Pedagogy and the Spirit of the Times

Between 1961 and 1984 the renowned New Zealand writer, Margaret Mahy, wrote over seventy-five pieces for the School Journal (a graded reading book provided free to New Zealand primary schools since its inception in 1907). It was a liberal humanist period in New Zealand education during which the 1940s’ and 1950s’ rolling reforms implemented by Clarence Beeby had had time to settle, and John Dewey’s progressive system, influenced by ideas associated with European romanticism, had taken hold. With a new appreciation of nationhood and the arts, School Publications sought to publish material that was not only instructional, but also of high literary quality, by reputable New Zealand authors such as Margaret Mahy. Indeed, the School Journal provided Mahy not only with an opportunity to publish her vividly imagined poetry and prose, but also with the additional challenge of writing for an audience of Māori and Pākehā primary school children who needed to learn to read. This article considers ways in which Mahy’s Journal work reflected (or did not reflect) the spirit of the times.

‘A book is a book, all the world over’: New Zealand and the Colonial Writing World 1890–1945

The idea that literary expatriation was a prevalent and often necessary phenomenon for early twentieth-century Antipodean writers is well established, as it is widely believed that New Zealand and Australia were places not conducive to the nurturing of literary talent. In order to succeed, writers were forced to leave for places with developed publishing infrastructure and sympathetic communities of like-minded people like London, choosing expatriation over failure or mediocrity at home. This study, which is based on an empirical investigation into the lives and publication records of New Zealand authors, questions this long-held assumption by emphasising the transnational elements involved in literary production. New Zealand writers were able to remain in New Zealand and still be successful because of the existence of the ‘colonial writing world'—a system of cultural diffusion, literary networks and personal interactions that gave writers access to all the cultural capital of Britain (and other hubs of empire) through the lines of communication established by colonial expansion. The opportunities provided by international connections have been largely overlooked or dismissed until very recently because of the persistent nationalist framework within which New Zealand literary history has been written.

Becoming New Zealand Writers: Margaret Mahy and The Tricksters ’ Harry Hamilton

Critics have discussed the New Zealandness of Margaret Mahy’s work, but little attention has been given to how her fiction reveals the process of acquiring or realizing a New Zealand literary imagination. Outlining Mahy’s path to become a ‘New Zealand writer,’ the article explores protagonist Harry Hamilton’s negotiation of that same passage in The Tricksters (1986). It argues that Harry’s conquering of the powerful literary influences of Western (specifically Northern) literary tradition, symbolized by the three trickster brothers, enables her to become an author who can write authentically from her own internalised New Zealand perspective.

Gurdjieff and Katherine Mansfield Redux: Alma de Groen’s ‘The Rivers of China’

The brief residence of the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) at G.I. Gurdjieff’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Prieuré des Basses Loges, Fontainebleau-Avon, ended with her death on 9 January 1923. She had been diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1918 (the year of her marriage to John Middleton Murry), and her illness was in an advanced state when she arrived at the Prieuré on 17 October 1922, having joined the circle of Gurdjieffians around A.R. Orage in London in August of that year and heard P.D. Ouspensky lecture on a few occasions. Gurdjieff was reviled as a charlatan and held responsible for her death by hostile critics, but there is substantial evidence that his teachings, and the solicitation of certain of his pupils, eased her last months. This article examines the historical record of Mansfield and Gurdjieff’s interactions and compares this to a fictional rendition of Mansfield’s time at the Prieuré, the play The Rivers of China by Alma de Groen (b. 1941), herself a female writer from New Zealand, for whom Mansfield’s life and death are primarily to be interpreted through the lens of feminism. The Rivers of China (1987) won the Premier’s Literary Award for Drama in both New South Wales and Victoria, Australia, and is a demanding, yet rewarding, drama. It is interesting as one of the play’s parallel narratives (both of which focus on Mansfield) offers a rare fictional portrait of Gurdjieff. The play therefore functions as a conduit for transmission of the Gurdjieff–Mansfield relationship to audiences that may know little of these enigmatic and challenging figures, despite its particular interpretation of the factual record.

Selections from Len Lye and the Problem of Popular Films (1938)

In 1926 the new zealand artist, writer, and budding filmmaker len lye arrived in london by way of sydney, australia.Only twenty-five years old, Lye was still a few years away from his first breakthrough in film: Tusalava (1929), a nine-minute animated film composed of over 4,400 drawings that took nearly two years to complete (Horrocks, Len Lye 91). The artist would spend the next two decades in London, years in which his association with the General Post Office Film Unit would provide him with the resources he needed to create some of his most famous films, such as A Colour Box (1935), Rainbow Dance (1936), and N or NW (1938).In December 1925, a young American poet by the name of Laura Gottschalk—soon to change her name to Laura Riding—followed Robert Graves's advice and moved to London. While she had yet to publish a book of poems, her poetry had appeared in a number of literary journals, most notably the Fugitive (Jacobs xvii). Her first collection, The Close Chaplet, was published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press in October 1926.

The New Zealand New Woman: Translating a British Cultural Figure to a Colonial Context

AbstractWhile New Woman scholarship has been a lively element of Victorian studies for the last 30 years, less attention has been given to the colonial space and the pressure it puts on the New Woman in the way in which her freedoms differed from that of her British counterpart. This essay for the Global Circulation Project begins to interrogate how the historical moment of the New Woman movement translates to a New Zealand context in the fiction of three turn‐of‐the‐century New Zealand writers: Julius Vogel (1835–1899), Louisa Alice Baker (1856–1926) and Edith Searle Grossmann (1863–1931). The state of criticism on each of these writers has tended to focus on their productive engagement with New Zealand cultural history rather their being situated within a New Woman literary tradition. Ranging from the late 1880s through to 1910, their writing shows a progression from a utopian vision of harmony between Britain and the colonies, to a refutation of the intellectual and cultural limitations of the colonial setting and, finally, to a rejection of Britain in favour of a distinctly New Zealand home. The three novels under analysis here are judged to be examples of New Zealand New Woman fiction and are recuperated within a wider framework of late 19th‐century New Woman writing.

Trading Places in New Zealand two women's literary search for self-realization overseas

Toe paper compares sorne of the possíble reasons for the radical change of locale and overseas travel far away from home in the case of the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield and especially the Slovenian author Alma Maximiliana Karlin in the early twentieth-century, which shows an interesting parallelism and search for the 'othemess' of experience beyond their respective homelands. If Mansfield decided to leave New Zealand for London to study, and for the second time to avoid the provincial climate at home, then the Slovenian travel writer Alma Karlin decided to leave Europe for Asia and New Zealand at roughly the same time as Mansfield arrived in the modemist literary Bloomsbury area in London. Toe publication of Mansfield's famous collection, I11e Carden Parti; and Other Ston·es (1922), and Karlin's travel book, Solitan; Journey (Die Einsame Weltreise, 1929), almost coincided, although the two women authors never met.

REVIEW: Noted: Technology's impact on English not all bad

Review of: English for journalists, by Wynford Hicks (20th ed.), London, New York: Routledge, 2013. ISBN9780415661720 (pbk); Bateman New Zealand Writer’s Handbook: An indispensable guide to getting published, by Tina Shaw. Auckland: Bateman, (6th Ed.), 2013. 208pp. ISBN: 9781869538361.English for journalists: Hicks discusses just what kind of English the book is about. As many before him have noted, the strongest influence on the language has undoubtedly been American, but latterly the influence of new technology has been considerable, and not necessarily in a ngative manner says Hicks (p.1). He quotes researchers who see many positives in the influence of social media, claiming that for as many mistakes that appear on Twitter, for example, as many people are busy pointing them out. The English language is not decaying, says Hicks, but there are still problems.Bateman New Zealand Writer's Handbook: An indispensable guide to getting published: Keen writers New Zealanders might be, and where to get published can still be a fraught exercise. On hand with helpful advice is the latest edition, the sixth, of the Bateman New Zealand Writer's Handbook from fiction writer and tutor of creative writing Tina Shaw.

Writing in Aotearoa right now: a bricolage - Ten New Zealand writers respond to an invitation to write about their experience of writing

Writing in Aotearoa right now: a bricolage - Ten New Zealand writers respond to an invitation to write about their experience of writing

“From Whaling to Armaments to Food”: Melville's, Pynchon's, and Wedde's Economies of the Pacific

The Pacific has been treated as a region where systems of economic and cultural control generate a uniformity that mimics paradise. It also serves as a global, oceanic circulatory system for routes of commerce in whaling, armaments, and food production. Herman Melville, Thomas Pynchon, and the New Zealand writer Ian Wedde oscillate between historical narratives of Pacific islands and transcendental antinarratives in which history is subsumed by timeless, universalized space.

New Zealand and the Tasman writing world, 1890–1945

A common theme among the settler colonies of the British world is concern about promising intellectuals and writers leaving for larger cities and cultural metropolises elsewhere. Early twentieth-century New Zealand is no exception, and is seen as a place of ‘exile’ for writers who were forced to leave and become expatriates in places like London or Sydney in order to fulfil their literary ambitions. On closer investigation, however, it is revealed that this problem has been greatly exaggerated. The existence of a ‘colonial writing world’ meant that New Zealand writers were not exiled in small or geographically isolated communities. They participated in a system of cultural diffusion, literary networks and personal interactions that gave writers access to the cultural capital of the British world through lines of communication established by colonial expansion. The most immediate parts of the colonial writing world were the eastern cities of Australia, the literary communities of which were closely linked with New Zealand. The opportunities that this ‘Tasman writing world’ provided (in combination with wider colonial networks) meant that physical location in New Zealand was not a hindrance to literary success.This article has been peer-reviewed.

Historical Material in Maurice Gee's The Fire-Raiser

Award-winning New Zealand writer, Maurice Gee, has written five realistic novels for children, each set during a defining period in New Zealand history. This essay examines Gee’s use in The Fire-Raiser of historical material, particularly that related to Nelson Central School and its lively headmaster, F. G. Gibbs. Through his accurate reproduction of precise detail Gee vividly evokes small-town New Zealand during World War I. But Gee also adapts historical material in order to pursue his ideal of balance.Vivien van Rij is a lecturer in Victoria University's Faculty of Education, specialising in children's literature and literacy.Correspondence about this article may be directed to the author at vivien.vanrij@vuw.ac.nz

REVIEW: Everybody's uncle

Review of: Scrim – the man with a mike, by William Renwick. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2011, 308 pp. ISBN 978-0864736956Biography is currently one of the most popular literary genres but New Zealand writers seem to choose their subjects from quite a narrow range of sportsmen and military figures. Few have chosen to write about historic media individuals. The last one I recall was Facing the Music: Charles Baeyertz and the Triad, by Joanna Woods (2008).Renwick sets out to put the record straight on some of the myths surrrounding this controversial broadcaster, a methodist minister, whose Friendly Road sessions on provate radio 1ZR in the 1930s made him one of the most popular men in the country.

All aboard the U.S.S. New Zealand? Voyaging through the literary responses to the American ‘occupation,’ 1942–1944

This article reviews and compares the literary fictions of the United States and New Zealand, as they have sought to respond to the ‘occupation,’ 1942–1944. During the period in question, approximately 100,000 United States Army and Marine Corps servicemen landed and resided in New Zealand, where they undertook final preparations for the island campaigns of the Pacific War. In the aftermath of the war, American fiction writers wrote of the social and cultural difficulties endured by New Zealand civilians, but New Zealand writers took longer to come to terms with the events.

Kakapo: Rescued from the Brink of Extinction. By Alison Ballance. Nelson, NZ: Craig Potton Publishing 2010.

New Zealand writer, David Young, Reviews Kakapo: Rescued from the Brink of Extinction. 200 pp. Cloth $49.95Alison Ballance's work deals with the kakapo, once widely distributed across the archipelago, and which has become the poster-child of bird recovery programs in New Zealand. Since parrots are relatively new-comers to evolution, it had to have flown here in the past 12-25 million years, long after New Zealand separated from Australia. At the heart of the kakapo story are the seed masting years, those climate-dependent seasons when native trees come into especially heavy seeding.

Is There a Collective Noun for Loners?

This paper will consider the nature and activities of writers' groups in New Zealand against the historical and popular evidence of it having generated a literature of loners. With a small population and a relatively short recorded history, New Zealand now has a remarkably active range of societies and associations, both formally and informally based. The paper will consider this conundrum with reference to the works of New Zealand writers.

The Pursuit of Wholeness in Maurice Gee's O Trilogy

According to award-winning New Zealand writer, Maurice Gee, one of his main concerns is the bringing of parts together to create whole books, whole characters and groups of characters, and whole worlds. This is particularly the case in three of his children's novels: the fantasies The Halfmen of O, The Priests of Ferris, and Motherstone (widely known as the O trilogy) in which he echoes Jungian depth psychology. This essay examines Susan, the child protagonist and ‘chosen one’, who reflects Gee's own preoccupation with wholeness in that her quest throughout the trilogy is to restore wholeness and balance to the divided planet of O.

“My Name was Christian.” C.K. Stead, Religion, Culture and National Identity

Culminating in My Name is Judas (2006), New Zealand writer C.K. Stead has wrestled and argued with religious belief as both cultural legacy and cultural constraint. This paper argues that central to Stead’s modernism and post-colonial nationalism is the overcoming of religion as a constantly unfinished project of modernity, with Zen positioned as an alternative. Yet Stead’s cultural modernism finds him, like Judas, increasingly isolated and dislocated in society where ‘many have lost their heads’.

The gothic in children's literature. Haunting the borders (review)

Reviewed by: The gothic in children's literature. Haunting the borders Victoria Flanagan USA Anna Jackson, Karen Coats, AND Roderick McGillis (EDS), The gothic in children's literature. Haunting the borders. (Series: Children's literature and culture; 43) New York [et al]: Routledge 2008 VII + 254pp ISBN 9780415960366 US$ 100.00 Gothic motifs and themes have never been more popular in children's literature, as evidenced by the worldwide publishing success of series such as Harry Potter, Twilight, and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. This engaging and comprehensive study traces the wide-spread impact of the Gothic in children's books and, in the words of editor Roderick McGillis, asks "why a form that we might think inappropriate for young readers is so pervasive in the various forms of textuality produced for them" (p. 27). Part of this volume's appeal is its wide-ranging focus. It tackles subjects as diverse as the relationship between humor and the Gothic, the novels of Neil Gaiman, the role of the family in contemporary young adult fiction, J.K. Rowling's employment of the Gothic mode when representing female development in the Harry Potter series, and the way in which Gothic comics for young readers subvert comic book conventions and open up new and liberating spaces for child and female characters. Many of the ideas canvassed are innovative and intriguing, particularly those expressed in standout chapters by Nadia Crandall (Cyberfiction and the Gothic Novel), Rose Lovell-Smith (the Gothic representation of the beach in The Tricksters, a novel by New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy) and Roderick McGillis's excellent conclusion (which uses M.T. Anderson's vampire novel Thirsty to propose that the Gothic mode can offer positive ways in which to understand and explain human behavior). Aside from the fact that this book is both compelling and interesting, it fills a necessary gap in recent children's literature criticism. Reflecting on the popularity of the Gothic in fictions produced for children and adolescents, this volume also poses questions about changing cultural attitudes towards the innocence of children – because, unlike conventional Gothic heroines, the child protagonists of contemporary children's narratives rarely need rescuing; they are eminently capable of saving themselves. [End Page 71] Copyright © 2010 Bookbird, Inc.

Towards Another Summer

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessTowards Another SummerDavid S. HeathDavid S. HeathSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Dec 2009https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2009.60.12.1694AboutSectionsView articleView PDFView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View articleThis is clearly an autobiographical novel, described on the fly leaf as "written in 1963 when New Zealand writer Janet Frame was in London, this is the first publication of a novel she considered too personal to be published in her lifetime" (she died in 2004).Almost the only character in the book, Grace Cleave is a New Zealand writer living in London. Written in the third person, most of the content is mainly the turmoil in Grace's head, as she struggles to relate to the admiring people intruding into her life. These thoughts are interspersed with reminiscences of her family and childhood. Most of the action is the neurotic nightmare of a weekend spent at the home of journalist Philip Thirkettle, his wife, and small children in Northern England. Grace is both famous and mentally disturbed. This sets up a delicious and amusing irony. There are the trappings of the famous Grace, represented by the interview by Thirkettle, requests for book signings, an interview on BBC Radio, and admiring references to her stories in The New Yorker. Then there is the real Grace, whose sense of self is abysmally vague and inadequate. Grace does not keep copies of her books; she has to borrow one for the BBC interview "to find out what it is about" and is completely tongue-tied in the face of admiring inquiries. My guess at the diagnosis of character Grace Cleave (and author Janet Frame) is at least severe social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. But there is clearly more—schizotypal personality disorder, I thought; high-level autistic spectrum disorder, according to Abrahamson ( 1 ). Throughout the book is the recurring motif that Grace is a "migratory bird." This includes a description of her literally turning into a migratory bird, "as she felt on the skin of her arms and legs, her breasts and belly, and even the top of her head tiny prickling beginning of the growth of feathers." I could not decide whether this was a delusion, magic realism, a comforting fantasy, or a metaphor for the lonely exile. Perhaps my confusion here is similar to that experienced by those who encountered the author, including her psychiatrists.Frame's psychiatric history is intriguing and confusing and inexorably intertwined with her writing and her literary life. In and out of New Zealand mental hospitals for nine years, she was diagnosed as having schizophrenia. She narrowly escaped a scheduled lobotomy—cancelled when news arrived that she had just received New Zealand's most prestigious literary prize for her first book. During Frame's voluntary admission to London's famous Maudsley hospital, an American psychiatrist told her that she did not have schizophrenia; no alternative diagnosis was offered, but she was then able to accept that she was different from other people. She was advised to live alone and to socialize only if she felt like it. For recovery advocates, there is a rich vein of recovery narrative to be tapped here. Her autobiography Angel at My Table was made into a film, which won prizes at Venice and Toronto film festivals and launched Jane Campion's career. Frame was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature in 2003. Towards Another Summer is beautifully written: it offers poetic prose, sharp insights into family life, and the best description of the agony of social anxiety disorder you will ever read. The reviewer reports no competing interests.Dr. Heath is a psychiatrist, Cambridge Memorial Hospital, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.Reference1. Abrahamson S: Did Janet Frame have high-functioning autism? New Zealand Medical Journal 120(1263), 2007Google Scholar FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 60Issue 12 December, 2009Pages 1694-1694PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES December 2009 Volume 60 Number 12 Metrics History Published online 1 December 2009 Published in print 1 December 2009