Bill Direen on Karl Wolfskehlby Friedrich Voit
Tasman Crossings
Lucy Sussex on West Island by Stephanie Johnson
How Long Does It Take to Unravel a Life?
Giovanni Tiso on Shirley Smith by Sarah Gaitanos
The Apotheosis of Theo Schoon
Laurence Simmons on Theo Schoon: A biography by Damian Skinner
A startlingly rackety life
Stephen Stratford on Life as a Novel: A biography of Maurice Shadbolt by Philip Temple
In Vivid Colour
Robyn Maree Pickens Colours of a Life: The life and times of Douglas MacDiarmid by Anna Cahill (Mary Egan Publishing in association with MacDiarmid Arts Trust, 2018), 444 pp., $80 Before I settle in to a book I like to examine its paratextual material: features such as foreword, acknowledgments and endorsements. By examining the way […]
A Gender Magpie
Chris Brickell I Have Loved Me a Man: The life and times of Mika by Sharon Mazer, with a foreword by Witi Ihimaera (Auckland University Press, 2018), 288 pp., $59.99 It all began in Timaru. Neil Gudsell, who later transformed himself into the drag artist, activist and performer Mika, started his life in the provincial […]
Our Polyglot Contemporary
Janet M. Wilson The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Katherine Mansfield: Volume 3: The Poetry and Critical Writings of Katherine Mansfield, edited by Gerri Kimber and Angela Smith (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), 754 pp., £175; Volume 4, The Diaries of Katherine Mansfield: Including miscellaneous works, edited by Gerri Kimber and Claire Davison (Edinburgh […]
A Superb Scrutiny
Briar Wood Tuai: A traveller in two worlds by Alison Jones and Kuni Kaa Jenkins (Bridget Williams Books, 2017), 288 pp., $39.99 James Barry’s fine 1818 portrait, Tooi, a New Zealand Chief, on the cover of this book, gives an indication of why the authors must have chosen to set out on this voyage of research about […]
The Godwit Guys
Nelson Wattie The Expatriates by Martin Edmond (Bridget Williams Books, 2017), 328 pp., $49.99 People – such as the four men discussed in this book – get passionate about many different things, but what matters most to everyone is life itself – our own lives and those of others – and that’s where biography comes […]
A Previously Unsung Life
Jane Westaway Polly Plum: A firm and earnest woman’s advocate: Mary Ann Colclough 1836–1885 by Jenny Coleman (Otago University Press, 2017), 296 pp., $39.95 Polly Plum was the nom de plume of Mary Ann Colclough – née Barnes – who lived and worked in Auckland and Melbourne during the period of first-wave feminism. Author Jenny […]
Forgotten Giants
Norman Franke Poetry and Exile: Letters from New Zealand 1938–1948 by Karl Wolfskehl, edited and translated by Nelson Wattie (Cold Hub Press, 2017), 464 pp., $45 Now virtually unknown in New Zealand, the German-Jewish poet Karl Wolfskehl (1869–1948) made a great personal impression on the first generation of postcolonial writers. Frank Sargeson, writing about his […]