When Keri Hulme’s first novel, The bone people, won the Booker Prize in 1985, it was not only New Zealand’s first Booker, but the first debut novel ever to win the prestigious award.
Literature
Events In History
18 February 1982
Ngaio Marsh, one of the 'Queens of Crime' in the 1920s and 1930s, died just weeks after submitting her 32nd detective novel, Light thickens, to her publishers. She was also an artist, playwright, actor and director.
3 March 1960
One of the most-read books in New Zealand publishing history, A good keen man established Barry Crump’s reputation as an iconic ‘Kiwi bloke’.
26 April 1945
At the time of his death by suicide in Cairo, many New Zealanders knew little about the Christchurch-born author of Man alone
23 August 1939
The journalist, poet and novelist, born Iris Wilkinson, was one of New Zealand's finest inter-war writers. Troubled by depression, illness and poverty, she took her own life in London.
8 May 1926
Originally intended as a journal for the Railways Department’s 18,000 staff and their major customers, the New Zealand Railways Magazine evolved into a hugely popular general-interest periodical.
9 January 1923
Internationally acclaimed author Katherine Mansfield revolutionised 20th-century English short-story writing. She died from tuberculosis in France, aged just 34.
9 May 1907
New Zealand pupils were for the first time able to read a schoolbook published in their own country.
Articles
Making of New Zealand literature
Historian and poet Keith Sinclair has argued that the 1950s was the decade 'when the New Zealand intellect and imagination came alive' Read the full article
Links - arts and literature
Recommended links relating to New Zealand arts, literature and music Read the full article
New Zealand Book Month
Kiwis love books. To celebrate New Zealand Book Month, we have come up with 31 reasons to love New Zealand books and writing. Read the full article
Page 1 - New Zealand Book Month
Kiwis love books. To celebrate New Zealand Book Month, we have come up with 31 reasons to love New Zealand books and
Page 2 - 31 reasons to love NZ books and writing
A selection of stories about the history of Kiwi writing, writers and books – one for each day of NZ Book
First World War bibliography
Sources for further reading about New Zealand's First World War experience. Read the full article
Biographies
Robin Hyde packed a lot into her short and often tragic life. Best known today for her novels Passport to hell, Nor the years condemn and The godwits fly, she was also a fine poet, a crusading journalist and an outspoken advocate for the downtrodden.
The magazine Newsweek described her novels as 'the best whodunits ever written'. Marsh was also an artist, playwright, actor and director.
A keen observer of and commentator on European politics in the 1930s, John Mulgan is best known as the author of Man alone (1939).
Katherine Mansfield wrote short stories, poetry, letters, journals and reviews, and is regarded as a central figure in British modernism.
Frank Sargeson, born Norris Frank Davey in 1903, was one of New Zealand’s most celebrated writers of the 20th century.
Main image: The boys of Puhawai
The publication in 1960 of a collection of stories about the day-to-day adventures of three young Kiwi boys was a welcome addition to the limited range of quality children's literature.
