Blog Archives

On not relying on truthiness, Brian Easton 

A Conversation With My Country
Alan Duff
Penguin Random House, $39.00,
ISBN 9780143773269

In 1990, a comet brightened the New Zealand literary scene and society with the publication of Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors, for it involved both an extraordinary literary style and a powerful story.

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Posted in Māori, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

The resilience of children, Ann Beaglehole

Frederick’s Coat Alan Duff Vintage, $38.00, ISBN 9781869415662 Bangs Stevan Eldred-Grigg Penguin, $30.00, ISBN 9780143568063 Waiting for Elizabeth Joan Rosier-Jones Tangerine Publications, $30.00, ISBN 9780987664617 Alan Duff is one of our most esteemed writers. His best-known novel Once Were Warriors

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Bovver boys

What they wrote A taste of contributor comments over our first 20 years   On New Zealand Books My hope is that New Zealand Books will provide a forum for frank discussion that dares to rise above the suffocating confines

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Posted in Comment

The good, the bad and the epic, Louise O’Brien

As the Earth Turns Silver Alison Wong Penguin Books, $37.00, ISBN 0143011677 Who Sings for Lu?  Alan Duff Vintage, $36.99, ISBN 9781869790585 The Adventures of Vela Albert Wendt Huia, $35.00, ISBN 9781869693633 Alison Wong’s As the Earth Turns Silver describes

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Another thing about Jake, Otto Heim

Jake’s Long Shadow Alan Duff Vintage, $29.95, ISBN 1869415116 The first impression of Alan Duff’s new novel makes you expect a work of probing substance. Its cover is reminiscent of Heretaunga Pat Baker’s Behind the Tattooed Face. Featuring Brian Brake’s

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Quo vadis, Alan? Simone Drichel

Szabad Alan Duff Vintage, $29.95, ISBN 1869414721 Reviewing a new novel by – notoriously controversial –  Alan Duff is not only a daunting, but also a somewhat futile exercise. Judgements regarding Duff’s work tend to be firmly in place: there

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Plumb Duff, Otto Heim

Out of the Mist and Steam: A Memoir Alan Duff Tandem Press, $29.95, ISBN 1 877178 58 6 Alan Duff frames his autobiography with scenes of his post-Warriors success: here we see him at ease with Prime Ministers, rubbing shoulders

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Plumb Duff, Otto Heim

Out of the Mist and Steam: A Memoir Alan Duff Tandem Press, $29.95, ISBN 1 877178 58 6 Alan Duff frames his autobiography with scenes of his post-Warriors success: here we see him at ease with Prime Ministers, rubbing shoulders

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Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review

Standing alone? Reina Whaitiri

Alan Duff’s Maori Heroes Random House, $39.95, ISBN 186941425X Wahine Toa: Women of Maori Myth Robyn Kahukiwa & Patricia Grace Penguin, $31.00, ISBN 0670839418   Alan Duff’s Maori Heroes features 58 men and women from a range of professions and

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Posted in Biography, Gender, History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review

Immersion therapy, Ruth Brown

Writing Along Broken Lines: Violence and Ethnicity in Contemporary Maori Fiction  Otto Heim Auckland University Press, $39.95, ISBN 1 86940 182 4 Both Sides of the Moon Alan Duff Vintage, $29.95, ISBN 1 86941 362 8 After retiring from journalism,

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Māori, Review
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