Anna Smaill’s Debut Novel Communicated Through Music
New Zealand poet Anna Smaill’s debut novel The Chimes, reviewed in the Independent, is “dystopian fiction but not quite as we know it.” “Smaill draws on her training as a classical violinist to create...
View ArticlePaula Morris Makes Lucrative Short Story Comp Longlist
Auckland author Paula Morris has made it onto the 19-strong longlist for the 2015 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the world’s richest prize for a single short story. The award – now in its sixth...
View ArticleComic Artist Ant Sang Draws on East and West for Inspiration
Award-winning comic artist Ant Sang, who was a guest at this year’s Taipei International Book Exhibition, draws on Western and Eastern influences having spent his childhood and teenage years in New...
View ArticleWriting Struck a Chord for Author Anna Smaill
According to the Independent, New Zealand author Anna Smaill’s debut novel The Chimes is “superb … intriguing, ambitious and strikingly written.” Harper’s Bazaar tips it for “book of the year.” The...
View ArticleNow You Shall Know Jennifer Compton’s New Collection
Wellington-born poet and playwright Jennifer Compton’s new collection Now You Shall Know “has an early late-career energy about it – and a focus on what is really important,” the Sydney Morning...
View ArticleKatherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf’s Powerful Partnership
Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf are included in a list of literary “titans” who banded together as penpals whilst they produced the classics. “Before Woolf was lionised she shared an unlikely...
View ArticleGoogle Doodle Honours Detective Novelist Ngaio Marsh
New Zealand-born crime writer and theatre director Dame Ngaio Marsh who wrote during the “golden age” of detective novels was celebrated on 23 April 2015 with a Google Doodle. Marsh, born in...
View ArticleUnknown Katherine Mansfield Poems Found in Chicago Library
Nearly 30 unknown poems by Katherine Mansfield have been discovered in Chicago’s Newberry Library, giving fresh insight into the writer’s most painful and difficult period, the evidence for which she...
View ArticleNew Zealander Makes Booker Prize Longlist
New Zealand author Anna Smaill has been longlisted for the £50,000 Man Booker Prize with her debut novel The Chimes. “Just dropped in to check my email before bed and … now can’t see sleep in my near...
View ArticleIncredulous Anna Smaill on Booker Nomination
One of three debut writers on the Man Booker longlist, 35-year-old Anna Smaill will be unfamiliar to all but the most avid reader of contemporary fiction: her previous publication is a volume of...
View ArticleJanet Frame Travels Home Around the World
Janet Frame’s 1963 novella Towards Another Summer reimagines the New Zealand author’s “roots crisis” and is a sharp drama of fleeing, and missing, home, Catherine Taylor writes for the Guardian. The...
View ArticleNabokov Biographer Boyd Delivers Letters to Véra
University of Auckland Professor and definitive Vladimir Nabokov biographer Brian Boyd this month published Letters to Véra, the first complete volume of the author’s letters to his wife. Edited and...
View ArticleLegions of Fans Greet Author Lang Leav in KL
Best-selling poet and author Lang Leav’s cult following of devoted fans from all over the world, began with her poetry being shared by millions on Tumblr and eventually culminated with the publication...
View ArticleBen Sanders’ Crime Novel Takes on the Big Guns
Ben Sanders’ American Blood is a “world-class thriller,” according to Karen Hardy writing for the Sydney Morning Herald. “It’s perhaps a little too soon to put Sanders in the same league as Lee Child,”...
View ArticleOwls Do Cry Reissued with Margaret Drabble Intro
Janet Frame’s 1957 debut novel Owls Do Cry has now been reissued with a nuanced and appreciative introduction by Margaret Drabble, who calls the novel “an exhilarating and dazzling prelude to [Frame’s]...
View ArticleOwls Do Cry Continues to Astonish 60 Years On
The “modern masterpiece” Owls Do Cry, written by New Zealand author Janet Frame in 1957, “about siblings struggling with money, health and grief still has the power to unnerve and astonish,” writes...
View ArticleTranslator Max Bickerton’s Haiku Legacy Discussed
“In the 1930s, a translator of Japanese literature from New Zealand was jailed and tortured by the Japanese police. His name was Max Bickerton or, more fully, William Maxwell Bickerton,” Japanese poet...
View ArticleBlair Reeve’s New Children’s Book a Classic
Hong Kong-based New Zealander Blair Reeve, who mentors students at Chinese University in creative writing, has just published children’s book Hogart the Hedgehog Turns Nink, “an enormously fun book,...
View ArticleWriter Maria Lewis Outdoes Tarantino
New Zealand-born journalist and author Maria Lewis has morphed from a crime reporter on the Gold Coast to pop-culture extraordinaire, has nabbed an international publishing deal and caught Quentin...
View ArticleRonald Syme’s The Roman Republic a Masterpiece
New Zealander Sir Ronald Syme’s The Roman Revolution, written under the cloud of fascism, is a compelling account of the decline of the Roman oligarchy in favour of a principate, according to author...
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