Blog Archives
Fighting with the enemy: New Zealand POWs and the Italian Resistance Susan Jacobs Penguin, $34.95, ISBN 0143018620 On 10 July 1943 Allied forces attacked Italy, landing in Sicily. Two weeks later the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was overthrown in an…
Michael King I got to know Michael King as a student at Victoria University in the mid-1960s. It was an exciting time. There was marching in the streets, heated late-night discussions over instant coffee. We were getting out from under.…
A funny sort of pride This is an unusual issue of New Zealand Books, dominated by the loss of two of our pre-eminent writers. When Janet Frame died in January, we decided to commemorate her achievement in this June issue…
The most famous of Janet Frame’s poems is probably the one about the little boy dying of leukaemia, “Yet Another Poem About a Dying Child”, which ends with the appearance of Death as a giant spider which gobbles the child…
Enduring legacy – Charles Brasch, patron, poet and collector (ed) Donald Kerr University of Otago Press in association with University of Otago Library, $39.95, ISBN 1877276650 Several years ago at a reunion of those who had held Otago University’s Robert…
Takapuna (Janet Frame 1924-2004) So, old friend, you’ve come to it at last (Ron Mason’s line, and now an echo of Yeats!). How does it feel to feel nothing? No one will ask you to read, no unmarked sheet…
Dominion From the morning’s politicians as they are delivered unto us shrink-wrapped and bouncing across the lawns of Hataitai deliver us, o lord—from the brash and unhumble who fall face-first, and whom daily we extract from mulch and puddle,…
Staunch (i.m. Michael King 1945 – 2004 & Maria Jungowska 1949 – 2004) I’d have wished you a gentler death in keeping with generosity & deft, liquid speech, yours of right, Michael, not this bizarre fireballing out, though your…
Change of heart Barbara Anderson Victoria University Press, $27.95, ISBN 0864734662 yet another ghastly christmas Shonagh Koea Vintage, $26.95, ISBN 186941568X These new novels by Barbara Anderson and Shonagh Koea sit comfortably together, like well-chosen china teacups. Their worlds have…
Songs from the Violet Café Fiona Kidman Random House, $26.95, ISBN 1869414055 In his 1984 essay “Reflections on Exile”, Edward Said remarks: Most people are principally aware of one culture, one setting, one home; exiles are aware of at least…
The historian who opened our eyes, Jock Phillips
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