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Issue 117 | Autumn 2017

Volume 27 | Number 1 | Issue 117 | Autumn 2017   Editorial Letter Kevin Ireland: Adam Dudding, My Father’s Island: A Memoir Helene Wong: Tyl von Randow, Red Dust Over Shanghai: A Shanghai-New Zealand Memoir 1937-1954 Martin Edmond: Nick…
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Poem – Fleur Adcock

The Old Government Buildings There it sprawls, embodying magnitude – but also symmetry – not sure whether to label itself “buildings” or “building”. Dignity would demand the plural, but “Largest wooden building in the southern Hemisphere” denotes it as singular.…
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Posted in Poem

Poetry and politics, Sarah Sharp

Robert Burns: Poet and Revolutionist Harry Holland (Dougal McNeill ed) Steele Roberts, $30.00, ISBN 9780947493172 Writing during the 1920s, Harry Holland describes the celebration of Burns Night as an event which unites Scots around the world: be the Scot where…
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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Writing about writing, Anne Else

Talk of Treasure  Jane Carswell Submarine, $35.00, ISBN 9780994137913 How do you depict the process of writing? Very few of the many films about writers try to show their protagonist actually doing it. Doctor Zhivago demonstrates why: Omar Sharif sits…
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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Poetic truths, Helen Heath

In a Slant Light: A Poet’s Memoir Cilla McQueen Otago University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781877578717 When I read Elizabeth Knox’s personal essays The Love School, in 2008, I finally realised that a writer’s past is whatever they say it is.…
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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Treaty flows, Alex Calder

Treaty of Waitangi: The Land is Our History: Indigeneity, Law, and the Settler State  Miranda Johnson Oxford University Press, $41.00, ISBN 9780190600020 Reconciliation, Representation and Indigeneity: “Biculturalism” in Aotearoa New Zealand   Peter Adds, Brigitte Bönish-Brednich, Richard S Hill, Graeme Whimp…
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Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Quality assured, Guy Somerset

Annual Kate De Goldi and Susan Paris (eds) Gecko Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781776570775 Would it kill Wellington children’s publisher Gecko Press to once – just once! – say “Sod it, really, who can be bothered?” and bung out some bit…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Downtown voices and sugar-rush diction, David Cohen

The Journal of Urgent Writing 2016 Nicola Legat (ed) Massey University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9780994130068 Tell You What 2017: Great New Zealand Nonfiction  Susanna Andrew and Jolisa Gracewood (eds) Auckland University Press, $30.00, ISBN 9781869408602 If I had to name…
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Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review

Wonderful New Zealand everydayness, Caitlin Walker

The Year of Falling Janis Freegard Mākaro Press, $35.00 ISBN 9780994106575 Selina’s life seems perfect. She’s got the job of her dreams, she and her boyfriend have been together for a record 18 months, and she’s got her health under…
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Posted in Literature, Review, Young adults

From a trio of veterans, Anna Mackenzie

The Severed Land Maurice Gee Penguin, $20.00, ISBN 9780143770244 Shooting Stars Brian Falkner Scholastic, $21.00, ISBN 9781775433606 Cool Nukes Des Hunt Scholastic, $20.00, ISBN 9781775433422 As a veteran of more than 50 years, Maurice Gee is one of New Zealand’s…
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Posted in Children, Fiction, Literature, Review, Young adults
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