BOOKPATHS

New Zealand

Ed Caesar talks with “New Zealand’s first man of letters,” Karl Stead.

It seems fitting that CK Stead, the winner of the first Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, should love the short story. Most people know Karl Stead as 'New Zealand’s first man of letters' — a novelist, poet and critic who has gained international acclaim while remaining rooted in his home country — but he has composed in the abbreviated form all his writing life. It is a genre, he says, that offers unique opportunities.  – from “CK Stead: Unfussy Talker and Award Winning Author,” by Ed Caesar, The Times

New Zealand

Katherine Mansfield: New Zealand Stories, Vincent O’Sullivan, editor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; Out of print, but available)

Katherine Mansfield: New Zealand Stories pulls together the stories set in the country where the celebrated author was born and lived until leaving for Europe at age nineteen.  The wise and evocative tales appear in the order in which Mansfield wrote them.

Dawn came sharp and chill with red clouds on a faint green sky and drops of water on every leaf and blade. A breeze blew over the garden, dropping dew and dropping petals, shivered over the drenched paddocks, and was lost in the sombre bush. In the sky some tiny stars floated for a moment and then they were gone–they were dissolved like bubbles. And plain to be heard in the early quiet was the sound of the creek in the paddock running over the brown stones, running in and out of the sandy hollows, hiding under clumps of dark berry bushes, spilling into a swamp of yellow water flowers and cresses.

And then at the first beam of sun the birds began. Big cheeky birds, starlings and mynahs, whistled on the lawns, the little birds, the goldfinches and linnets and fan-tails, flicked from bough to bough. A lovely kingfisher perched on the paddock fence preening his rich beauty, and a tui sang his three notes and laughed and sang them again. – from “Prelude,” by Katherine Mansfield

Related Website

Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Te Puakitanga, 25 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand

Dame Ngaio Marsh’s (1895-1982) Home, Christchurch, New Zealand

Born in New Zealand in 1895, from 1928 on Dame Ngaio Marsh, “world-renowned as a leading crime writer and as an eminent Shakespearian producer,” divided her time between England and her homeland.  While most of her mysteries are set in England, several are placed in New Zealand, including Vintage Murder, Colour Scheme, and Died in the Wool.  Famous in New Zealand for her theatre work, the Ngaio Marsh Theatre at the University of Canterbury was named in her honor.

A New Zealand “bookpath” should include a stop at Dame Ngaio Marsh’s Christchurch home.  Their website offers visitor information.

(Photograph from New Zealand Historic Places Trust.)

Katherine Mansfield Birthplace, 25 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand

The childhood home of Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), “New Zealand’s most famous author,” is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  Visiting the house and garden “provides essential background for the enjoyment and understanding of Mansfield’s writing.  Her memories and experiences here were recreated in her most famous short stories, The Aloe, Prelude, A Birthday, The Doll’s House, and The Wind Blows.”  For information, visit the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace website.

Oamaru, New Zealand

The author’s estate invites readers to follow the “Janet Frame Trail” when visiting New Zealand.  Sites include her childhood home, an exhibit at the North Otago Museum, the Janet Frame Collection at the Oamaru Public Library, and a walking tour.  Visit the Janet Frame Estate Web Site (click on Janet Frame Tourism) for information.

New Zealand

Also on the NPR website, listen to Liane Hansen talk about The First Big Crush, her “light-hearted book” detailing the year she spent working in a New Zealand winery.

New Zealand

Neal Hanson writes about his “trek to novelist Keri Hulme’s home” in a Los Angeles Times essay. The trek to “the tiny village of Okarito” “crosses one of the most remote, wild and beautiful parts of New Zealand’s South Island,” the setting for Hulme’s 1985 Booker Prize winning novel, The Bone People.

“Hulme's house is a boat-like construction of native wood, hunkered down into the dunes. The huge windows facing the ocean flood the interior with light and provide spectacular views of the land- and seascapes that inspire her. ‘I can obviously write elsewhere but this is — the Maori expression is turangawaewae-ngakau — one of the standing places of my heart.’" – from “’Bone People,’ Fishing and a Search for ‘Bait’” by Neil Hanson (Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2005)