Otago university press 2018-19 catalogue - University of Otago
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otago university press
2018–19 catalogue
NEW BOOKS I 1
OTAGO UNIVERSITY PRESS CONTENTS
PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand New books 3–28
Level 1 / 398 Cumberland Street, Recent books 25–31
Dunedin, New Zealand Books in print: by title 32–39
Phone: 64 3 479 8807 Books in print: by author 40–42
Email: university.press@otago.ac.nz How to buy OUP books 43
Web: www.otago.ac.nz/press
www.facebook.com/OtagoUniversityPress
http://twitter.com/OtagoUniPress
Publisher: Rachel Scott
Production Manager: Fiona Moffat
Editor: Imogen Coxhead
Publicity and Marketing Co-ordinator: Victor Billot
Accounts Administrator: Arvin Lazaro
Prices are recommended retail prices and may be subject to change.
Cover: Quilt made by Frances Broad, circa 1920, NZ,
138cm x 166cm, GH016392, Museum of New Zealand
Te Papa Tongarewa
2 I NEW BOOKS
HUDSON & HALLS JOANNE DRAYTON
The food of love
Hudson & Halls: The food of love is more than just a love story, though a love story it
certainly is. It is a tale of two television chefs who helped change the bedrock bad attitudes
of a nation in the 1970s and 80s to that unspoken thing – homosexuality.
Peter Hudson and David Halls became reluctant role models for a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’
generation of gay men and women who lived by omission. They were also captains of a
culinary revolution that saw the overthrow of Aunty Daisy and the beginnings of Pacific-
rich, Asian-styled international cuisine. Their drinking, bitching and bickering on screen,
and their spontaneous unchoreographed movements across the stage left cameras and
startled production staff exposed, broke taboos and melted formalities. They captivated an
unlikely bunch of viewers, from middle-aged matrons to bush-shirted blokes.
Hudson and Halls were pioneers of celebrity television as we know it today: the naughty,
not-quite-normal boys next door who rocketed to stardom on untrained talent and a
dream. When Peter Hudson became ill with prostate cancer, David Halls was inconsolable.
What remained unchanged through it all was their abiding love for each other.
In this riveting, fast-paced and meticulously researched book, New York Times bestselling
author Joanne Drayton celebrates the legacy of this unforgettable duo.
There is so much in this terrific book I knew little about. – PETER GORDON, chef
JOANNE DRAYTON is author of New York Times bestseller The Search for Anne Perry (2014),
which was a finalist in the New Zealand Book Awards 2013. Her critically acclaimed Ngaio Paperback with flaps, full colour
Marsh: Her life in crime (2008) was a Christmas pick in the UK’s Independent newspaper in 240 x 170mm, 304pp.
2009. Joanne has written three other groundbreaking biographies. In 2007 she was awarded ISBN 978-1-98-853126-7, $49.95
a National Library Fellowship, and in 2017 she received a prestigious Logan Nonfiction October 2018
Fellowship at the Carey Institute in Upstate New York. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, Published with the assistance of
with her partner and three cats. Creative New Zealand
NEW BOOKS I 3
CAREN WILTON MY BODY, MY BUSINESS
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MADELEINE SLAVICK
New Zealand sex workers in an era of change
In My Body, My Business, 11 former and current New Zealand sex workers speak frankly,
MY BODY, in their own voices, about their lives in and out of the sex industry. Their stories are by
my business
turns eye-opening, poignant, heartening, disturbing and compelling.
Based on a series of oral history interviews by Caren Wilton, My Body, My Business
includes the stories of female, male and transgender workers; Māori and Pākehā; street
workers, workers in massage parlours and upmarket brothels, escorts, strippers, private
New Zealand workers and dominatrices, spanning a period from the 1960s to today. Three of the 11
sex workers
in an era of interviewees still work in the industry. Several have been involved with the New Zealand
change Prostitutes’ Collective, including long-time national co-ordinator Dame Catherine Healy.
Four transgender interviewees tell their stories here, helping to document the history of
New Zealand’s transgender community, about which little has been published.
Caren Wilton prefaces the book with an introductory essay about the New Zealand sex
industry, which in recent times has seen a lot of changes, the most profound being the
decriminalisation of prostitution in 2003. Fifteen years on, New Zealand remains the only
country in the world to have decriminalised its sex industry. This engaging and highly
CAREN WILTON
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
readable book looks at what the changes have meant for the nation’s sex workers.
MADELEINE SLAVICK Wilton’s interviews are here complemented by 16 luminous, reflective and multi-layered
photographs by Madeleine Slavick.
Paperback, full colour
215 x 165mm, 288pp
CAREN WILTON is an oral historian, writer and editor, and was the recipient of three New
ISBN 978-1-98-853132-8, $45
Zealand Oral History Awards for her series of interviews with sex workers (on which My Body,
November 2018
My Business is based). An editor at Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand for almost nine
years, she is also a freelance book editor. She was the coordinator of an oral history project
Published with the assistance of focusing on Upper Hutt in the 1960s for Upper Hutt City Library in 2015–16, and is the author
Creative New Zealand of short-fiction collection The Heart Sutra (Otago University Press, 2003). She lives in the
Wairarapa.
4 I NEW BOOKS
TO THE MOUNTAINS SELECTED BY LAURENCE FEARNLEY
A collection of New Zealand alpine writing AND PAUL HERSEY
A schoolgirl races from class to join a weekend trip to the hills. A mountaineering guide
recalls his first weeks on the job during the 1920s. A young climber is shown the best route
over the Main Divide by a big bull thar. A climbing party is bombarded by falling rock
when Ruapehu suddenly erupts. A mountaineer pays tribute to the Māori guides from
south Westland, while a fighter pilot tries to recapture an ascent of the Minarets from his
tent in Nigeria during World War II.
From the Darrans of Fiordland to Denali in Alaska, New Zealand climbers, both
experienced and recreational, have captured their alpine experience in letters, journals,
articles, memoirs, poems and novels. Drawing on 150 years of published and unpublished
material, Laurence Fearnley and Paul Hersey, two top contemporary authors, have
compiled a wide-ranging, fascinating and moving glimpse into New Zealand’s
mountaineering culture and the people who write about it.
LAURENCE FEARNLEY is an award-winning novelist and non-fiction writer based in
Dunedin. The Hut Builder won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards and was
shortlisted for the 2010 Boardman Tasker Prize for mountain writing. In 2015 she worked
alongside mountaineer Lydia Bradey to write Going Up Is Easy, a finalist in the Banff Mountain
Literature Award. Laurence was awarded an Artists to Antarctica fellowship in 2003 and held the
Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in 2007. She has a PhD in creative writing.
PAUL HERSEY’s previous jobs have included newspaper reporter, ice climbing instructor,
fisheries enforcement officer and outdoors retail store manager. Now based in Dunedin, he
spends much of his time either climbing or surfing, or writing on various outdoor themes. Hardback, 230 x 150mm, 372pp
ISBN 978-1-98-853120-5, $45
Paul’s book Our Mountains (New Holland, 2013) won the adventure travel section award
In print
at the 2017 NZ Mountain Film and Book Festival. He also wrote Merino Country (Penguin
Random House, 2016), and is a contributor to New Zealand Geographic, Alpinist, The Surfer’s Published with the assistance of
Journal and North & South. Creative New Zealand
NEW BOOKS I 5
MARGARET POINTER NIUE AND THE GREAT WAR
The story of tiny Niue’s involvement in the Great War has captivated people since an
account was first published by Margaret Pointer in 2000. In 1915, 160 Niuean men joined
the New Zealand Expeditionary Force as part of the 3rd Maori Reinforcements and set sail
to Auckland and then Egypt and France. Most had never left the island before, or worn
shoes before. Most spoke no English, and significantly, they had no immunity to European
disease. Within three months of leaving New Zealand, over 80 per cent of them had been
hospitalised and the army authorities withdrew them.
Margaret Pointer became involved in research to trace the lost story of Niue’s
involvement in World War I while living on the island in the 1990s. The resulting book,
Tagi Tote e Loto Haaku: My Heart is Crying a Little, was published in 2000. Her research
has continued since, and Niue and the Great War contains much new material together
with new photographs. This moving story has now been set in a wider Pacific context and
also considers the contribution made by colonial troops, especially ‘coloured’ ones, to the
Allied effort.
MARGARET POINTER is a graduate in history from Victoria University of Wellington and
for many years taught at secondary school level. In 2015 Otago University Press published her
Niue 1774–1974: 200 years of contact and change. Margaret lives in Wellington and visits Niue
frequently.
Paperback, full colour
220 x 156mm, 216pp
ISBN 978-1-98-853123-6, $39.95
In print
6 I NEW BOOKS
SEE NO EVIL MAIRE LEADBEATER
New Zealand’s betrayal of the people of West Papua
See No Evil issues a challenge to New Zealanders. The book begins by relating the little-
known history of West Papua, but its focus is on the impact of New Zealand’s foreign
policy on the indigenous Melanesian inhabitants. In the 1950s New Zealand supported
self-determination for the former Dutch colony, but in 1962 opted to back Indonesia as it
took over the territory. Delving deep into historical government archives, many of them
obtained under the Official Information Act, this meticulously researched book uncovers
the untold story of New Zealand’s unprincipled and often hypocritical diplomacy. The
consequences of repressive Indonesian rule have been tragic for the West Papuan people,
who are experiencing ‘slow genocide’. West Papua remains largely closed to foreign
journalists, but its story is now beginning to be heard. A growing number of Pacific Island
nations are calling for change, but so far New Zealand has opted for caution and collusion
to preserve a ‘business as usual’ relationship with Indonesia.
See No Evil is a shocking account by one of New Zealand’s most respected authors on
peace and Pacific matters, issuing a powerful call for a just and permanent solution – self-
determination – for the people of West Papua.
MAIRE LEADBEATER grew up in a politically active family, where campaigning for
peace and many other causes came with the territory. A former Auckland city and regional
councillor, she spent her working life as a social worker, but is now retired and finding more
time for writing and for activism. For the past 25 years Maire has campaigned for freedom
for East Timor and West Papua. In 2017 she was awarded the Order of Timor-Leste by the Paperback, full colour
Timorese government. Her previous books are Negligent Neighbour: New Zealand’s collusion 240 x 170mm, 310pp
with the invasion and occupation of Timor Leste (Craig Potton Publishing, 2006) and Peace, ISBN 978-1-98-853121-2, $49.95
Power and Politics: How New Zealand became nuclear free (Otago University Press, 2013). In print
Maire has two adult children and five grandchildren.
NEW BOOKS I 7
PETER HOAR THE WORLD’S DIN
Listening to records, radio and films in New Zealand, 1880–1940
New Zealanders started hearing things in new ways when new audio technologies
arrived from overseas in the late 19th century. From the first public demonstration of a
phonograph in a Blenheim hall in 1879, people were exposed to a succession of machines
that captured and transmitted sounds – through radio, cinema and recordings.
In The World’s Din, Peter Hoar documents the arrival of the first such ‘talking
machines’, and their growing place in New Zealanders’ public and private lives, through
the years of radio to the dawn of television.
In so doing, he chronicles a ‘sonic revolution’ in how New Zealanders heard the world.
The change was radical, signifying a defining break from the past. Human experience of
the world changed forever during the late 19th and early 20th centuries because we learned
to store and replay sounds and moving images. ‘Audio’ since then has been a continued
refinement of the original innovation, even in the contemporary era of digital sound, with
iPods, streaming audio and Spotify.
The World’s Din is a beautifully written account that will delight music-lovers and
technophiles everywhere.
Without further ado, it is time to crank the gramophone, or tune the wireless, or open
the Jaffa box as the cinema lights dim, and hearken to the richness and variety of listening
in New Zealand’s past soundscapes.
PETER HOAR has taught radio and media history at Auckland University of Technology
for 20 years. Before joining AUT he worked in radio, television and journalism and is also
Paperback, illustrations
a qualified librarian. His research interests are in the field of sound studies, particularly in
150 x 230mm, 288pp
history, listening practices and technology. He regularly contributes concert reviews to Radio
ISBN 978-1-98-853119-9, $45, In print
New Zealand Concert’s arts programme Upbeat as well as documentaries on composers and
music. Peter is a passionate believer in the need for well-funded public media.
Published with the assistance of
Creative New Zealand
8 I NEW BOOKS
FLU HUNTER ROBERT G. WEBSTER
Unlocking the secrets of a virus
When a new influenza virus emerges that is able to be transmitted between humans, it
spreads globally as a pandemic, often with high mortality. Enormous social disruption and
substantial economic cost can result.
The 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic was undoubtedly the most devastating to date, and
it has been Dr Robert Webster’s life’s work to figure out how and why. In so doing he has
made a remarkable contribution to our understanding of the evolution of influenza viruses
and how to control them. A century on, Flu Hunter is a gripping account of the tenacious
scientific detective work involved in revealing the secrets of this killer virus.
Dubbed ‘Flu Hunter’ by Smithsonian Magazine in 2006, Dr Webster began his research in
the early 1960s with the insight that the natural ecology of most influenza viruses is among
wild aquatic birds. Painstaking tracking and testing of thousands of birds eventually led him
and the other scientists involved to establish a link between these bird virus ‘reservoirs’ and
human influenza pandemics.
Some of this fascinating scientific work involved exhuming bodies of Spanish flu victims
from the Arctic permafrost in a search for tissue samples containing genetic material from
the virus. Could a global influenza pandemic occur again? Webster’s warning is clear: ‘... it is
not only possible, it is just a matter of when.’
Flu Hunter chronicles the career of an outstanding global scientific leader. It … will appeal
equally to students and scientists familiar with the field, and lay readers. I heartily commend
it to all. – LANCE C. JENNINGS, chair, International Society for Influenza & other Respiratory Diseases
ROBERT G. WEBSTER is a world-renowned virologist and international expert in influenza
whose team isolated and identified the avian-adapted strain of H5N1, the causative agent Paperback, illustrations
of H5N1 flu commonly known as avian influenza or ‘bird flu’. His distinguished career began 150 x 230mm, 222pp
in Otago, and has included research posts in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. ISBN 978-1-98-853131-1, $35
For the past few decades he has worked in infectious diseases at St Jude Children’s Research In print
Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He has published over 600 articles and reviews on influenza
viruses, and in his eighties still travels the world addressing scientific gatherings.
NEW BOOKS I 9
PETER SIMPSON EDITOR CHARLES BRASCH JOURNALS 1958–1973
Selected and introduced by Peter Simpson
This third and final volume of Charles Brasch’s compelling private journals covers the
years from when he was 48 to his death at 64. By the 1960s, Brasch was a reluctant public
figure – as editor of Landfall, as a highly regarded poet, and as an art collector, patron
and benefactor. The Burns, Hodgkins and Mozart Fellowships – for writers, artists and
composers respectively – which he helped anonymously to found and fund, all began in
this period.
Among his friends Brasch counted most of the country’s leading artists, writers and
intellectuals, and his lively and sometimes acerbic accounts of such people are a fascinating
aspect of his journals.
Behind the public intellectual, however, was a sensitive and very private man, who
confided to his journals the emotional rollercoaster of his private life, especially his angst-
ridden search for love. Presented here are deep attachments to both men and women,
including Andrew Packard (a visiting English zoologist) and Margaret Scott, widow of
Harry Scott with whom Brasch had also been in love. Late in life his friendship with an
elderly Jewish émigrée, Moli Zisserman, adds another surprising layer to the complex and
lovable man his journals reveal.
Brasch’s journals will change forever the understanding of an outstanding New
Zealander and of the era to which he contributed so much.
Hardback, 16pp picture section
PETER SIMPSON is a writer, editor and curator who taught at universities in New Zealand
245 x 170mm, 694pp
and Canada. Peter has written and/or edited many books and essays on New Zealand art,
ISBN 978-1-98-853114-4, $59.95
literature and cultural history, including titles on Ronald Hugh Morrieson, Allen Curnow and
In print
Leo Bensemann. Recent projects include Charles Brasch Journals 1945–57 (OUP, 2017) and
Published with the assistance of Bloomsbury South: The arts in Christchurch 1933–53 (AUP, 2016). Peter lives in Auckland, where
Creative New Zealand he is working on a book about Colin McCahon. He received the Prime Minister’s Award for
Literary Achievement (Non-fiction) in 2017.
10 I NEW BOOKSFILMING THE COLONIAL PAST ANNABEL COOPER
The New Zealand Wars on screen
The New Zealand Wars were defining events in the nation’s history. Filming the Colonial
Past tells a story of filmmakers’ fascination with these conflicts over the past 90 years.
From silent screen to smartphone, and from Pākehā adventurers to young Māori
songwriters, filmmakers have made and remade the stories of this most troubling past.
When Rudall Hayward went to Rotorua, Whakatāne and Te Awamutu to make Rewi’s
Last Stand and The Te Kooti Trail, he found that the tangata whenua he relied on for making
his films helped shape the stories. By the time of the renewed interest in the New Zealand Filming the
Wars in the 1970s and early 80s, thinking about race, nation and empire was undergoing a Colonial Past
The New Zealand
sea-change. The makers of television drama (including The Governor) and independent film Wars on Screen
Annabel Cooper
(Geoff Murphy’s Utu) set out actively to engage with Māori advisers and performers.
In the late 1980s and 90s, screen industry deregulation brought a new set of challenges.
Filming the Colonial Past shows how documentaries – notably the New Zealand Wars series
of 1998 – and feature films – negotiated these hurdles. Paperback, full colour
Meanwhile, Māori working on Pākehā-led productions honed their skills. Today, the 200 x 240mm, 312pp
growth of Māori creative control, enabled by the diminishing cost of digital media and ISBN 978-1-98-853108-3, $50
the expansion of platforms, signals a new era. From these sources come documentaries December 2018
from Māori perspectives and new ways of exploring the past, from music videos to online Published with the assistance of
histories. Creative New Zealand
In examining this history, Annabel Cooper illuminates a fascinating path of cultural
change through successive generations of filmmakers.
ANNABEL COOPER is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Gender and Social
Work at the University of Otago. Her research covers a range of subjects in New Zealand
cultural history. Her edition of Mary Lee’s The Not So Poor and her contributions to Sites of
Gender: Women, men and modernity in southern Dunedin explored gender, place and poverty in
nineteenth-century New Zealand, and she has written further about place in articles on films,
suburbs and settler masculinity.
NEW BOOKS I 11ALISON CLARKE OTAGO
150 YEARS OF NEW ZEALAND’S FIRST UNIVERSITY
The University of Otago has always taken pride in its status as New Zealand’s first
university. Starting a university in 1869 was a bold move: other regions observed Otago’s
action with a mixture of surprise, scepticism and envy. The venture paid off: from
small beginnings, the university grew into a large institution with local, national and
international significance.
Like any organisation, the University of Otago has had its good times and its bad
times. It has been at some periods and in some ways deeply conservative, and in other
ways boldly entrepreneurial. A good history is a critical assessment rather than a public
relations exercise, and Alison Clarke has consulted and researched widely to produce a
forthright and fascinating account. While traditional institutional histories focus on the
achievements of the most senior staff, she has been at pains to write an inclusive history
painted on a much broader canvas.
This history is arranged thematically, looking at the university’s foundation and
administration; the evolving student body; the staff; the changing academic structure
and the development of research; the Christchurch and Wellington campuses and the
university’s presence in Auckland and Invercargill; key support services – libraries, press,
student health and counselling services, disability services, Māori Centre and Pacific
Islands Centre; the changing styles of teaching; the university’s built environment; and
Hardback, full colour
finally, the university’s place in the world – its relationship with the city of Dunedin, its
250 x 190mm, 512pp approx interaction with mana whenua and its importance to New Zealand and to the Pacific.
ISBN 978-1-98-853133-5, $50
December 2018 ALISON CLARKE was a nurse until she became sidetracked by history. She completed
a PhD at Otago in 2003, and has worked at the Hocken Collections since. Her previous
publications include Holiday Seasons: Christmas, New Year and Easter in nineteenth-century
New Zealand (2007); A Living Tradition: A centennial history of Knox College, Dunedin (2009);
and Born to a Changing World: Childbirth in nineteenth-century New Zealand (2012). She has
lived for many years on Otago Peninsula, where she tries not to let the view distract her while
writing.
12 I NEW BOOKS98 OTAGO 150 YEARS OF NEW ZEALAND’S FIRST UNIVERSITY 4 A pLAcE TO LIVE: LODgINgS, cOLLEgES AND FLATS 99
extended and two four-storey wings were added. Construction started in 1969 after considerable
The roll increased by over 100 that year.513 UniCol delays as the government deferred its contribution
provided a home for a considerable proportion because of financial difficulties, and imposed
of Otago students: it was an inspired choice as a tighter controls on the building industry.515 In
centenary project for the university. 1971 the first intake of 140 women moved in;
three were students for the Presbyterian ministry
and the rest were attending university or teachers’
college. Salmond Hall was named for a prominent
PRESBYTERIAN EXPANSION
Presbyterian family, in particular Mary Salmond,
A year after the university launched its fundraising former principal of the Deaconess College, and
appeal for UniCol the Presbyterian Church her brother James Salmond, a minister and a
started an appeal for another women’s college. leader in Christian education. The first warden,
Its existing colleges, Knox and St Margaret’s, had Keren Fulton, combined experience and good
grown through the decades and had added wings Presbyterian credentials; she had run the YWCA
in the 1960s but there was still demand for more hostel Kinnaird House.516 Though Salmond
beds. The new college would cater for women shared a few facilities such as tennis courts with
studying for a vocation in the church. Women who Knox, and the two colleges held a few combined
were training as Presbyterian deaconesses lived
The front of University college in its
A b ove : together as a small community but, by the 1960s,
early days: the cantilevered entry was quite their leaders felt they would benefit from living
a feature until additions built it out. The John
Middleditch sculpture was a centenary gift to
alongside other students, as men training for the
the university from the Association of Staff ministry at Knox did. In 1963 the church approved
Wives. S15-008A, HOcKEN cOLLEcTIONS. the scheme for a residence in the Knox grounds.
In 1964 the Presbyterian Church approved the
Le ft : A view across campus from one of the ordination of women as clergy – but nobody yet
communal balconies at Unicol, 2013.
UNIVERSITY OF OTAgO MARKETINg AND
considered the possibility they might live alongside
cOMMUNIcATIONS cOLLEcTION. male theology students in the same college.514
ten or a dozen people largely from the same floor. When integration was implemented in 1989 after
These people join the lunch time queue in the a trial the previous year, it had a positive effect
dining room together and tend to sit at the same on college life: among other changes, there was A b ove : Salmond college in
table.’ By default, the ‘floor’ – mostly 18 people – less noise and less damage. A few floors were kept 2009.
LIgHTHAUS pHOTOgRApH,
became the main social unit of UniCol.509 single-sex for those who preferred that option.510 UNIVERSITY OF OTAgO MARKETINg
AND cOMMUNIcATIONS
Though it was a mixed-gender college, UniCol Integration didn’t entirely end the rowdy cOLLEcTION.
developed a ‘blokey’ culture. The separation of behaviour, of course – though the skyrocket wars
the sexes within the college didn’t help: women between the college and flats on Clyde Street Le ft : The newly built Salmond
had the north tower and men the south tower and disappeared; they had been a feature of Guy Hall, c.1971.
68 OTAG SALMOND ANDERSON ARcHITEcTS
O 150 YEAR
visiting was strictly regulated. A campaign for S OF NEW
Fawkes season in the mid-1970s and again in REcORDS, MS-3821/2000, S16-548A,
ZEAL AND 511 HOcKEN cOLLEcTIONS.
integration of the towers emerged early, sparked by the mid-1980s. ’S FIRST
UniCol
UNIVwas still known as a
ERSIT Y
a speech from visiting broadcaster Brian Edwards ‘party’ college in the 1990s. Reforms around the
in 1971. Despite overwhelming support from turn of the century, led by a new full-time master
residents, though, the master and council resisted with a larger staff, enhanced pastoral care, raised
Music durin
requests for mixing the towers for many years, in behavioural expectations and modified g orien
thetation
worst
1974. week in
part out of concern that women needed protection excesses. The facilities were
512
smartened up
BOX 239-00
2,
COLLE CTION S13-21 7A, HOCKE
from the robust behaviour of the UniCol men. with renovations and in 2004 the dining
S. hall wasN
3 STUD ENT
Oppo site: LIFE 69
Orientation
featured an 1990
impressive
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The
work of Robe poster was the
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OUSA COLLE
CTION .
Sylvia Nori
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events to welco led. Student clubs
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‘hops’ – danc There were ed school were
es with live lots of notorious.
the beginning bands – at and college Attempts by
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a dance every book tions survi
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ised by the Allen Hall ty-first centu modified,
and athletic tennis, swim in know ry –
clubs. Ther ming, yach n Selwyn run including the
welcome, an e was also t complete with through the well-
informal OUS an SCM fresh ‘stolen’ Knox Wate r of Leith,
Trotters Gorg A weekend ers’ held since bath, that has
e (north of ‘congress’ at 1935 (it was been
of inter-facu Dunedin) that broke a collis
lty sports at and a week
end English’s foot) 362 ion with that bath
Many stude Logan Park By the 1960 .
nts made endu .– s OUSA was
with people ring friendship ‘orientation running an
they met at s week ’. Activities official
and some led an orientatio official welco in 1964 inclu
to a lasting n function, me from the ded an
dance she romance. At lectures and VC, student
attended at the first suppers, club forums,
Deal met Melv Otago in the members, displays to
ille Carr, a 1950s, Nanc a productio recruit
Central Otag chemistry y a couple of n by the dram
o; they are student from hops in the atic society,
years later. 360 still together freshers’ hop Union hall
Mary Scan over 60 in the Town and a speci
from Wellingto lon, a medical stude a popular attra Hall. 363 Film al
n, met her nt ction: 1966 s beca
orientation
dance in the
future husb
and at an ‘two colour students could me
cinemascop enjoy
promising early 1980s. 1970s musi e features’. 364
start – Bill It During the
and comm English, a first- wasn’t a always been
c became more
of a feature.
erce student year arts dance band There had
shy and ‘socia from rural Southland joined the s at hops; now
lly unaccomp , was mix and Otag rock bands
on crutches lished’, and circuit of natio o became part
after he was nal and inter of a touring
initiation cerem breaking his foot in by the New national acts,
ony – but they a Selwyn Zealand Stud organised
and later marr became firm the mid-1980 ents’ Arts Coun
ied. 361 friends s orientatio cil. 365 By
Residentia festival: the n was
l colleges and 1984 programm almost a music
association some facul and three e inclu ded five even
s had their
Most were own orientatio ty summer musi
lunchtime
concerts, plus ing
harmless fun, n activities. cal afternoon’ an ‘end of
humiliating but There were
initiation rites some involved other even on Sunday
afternoon.
supposed to for freshers performan ts – market
foster belon that were ce poet days, deba
The ‘tradition ging and grou
p loyalty. and wine tastin ry, movies, a barn danc tes,
s’ at the men’ g, clubs and e, beer
s colleges and music was societies day
the phys the star. Dun – but
alternative edin developed
music cultu a thriving
re and orien
tation was
an
NEW BOOKS I 13LANDFALL: AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND ARTS AND LETTERS
EDITED BY EMMA NEALE
LANDFALL LANDFALL ARCHIVE
NEW ZEALAND’S LONGEST RUNNING LITERARY JOURNAL, NOW IN ITS 72nd YEAR WWW.LANDFALLARCHIVE.ORG
FEATURED AWARDS: LANDFALL ESSAY COMPETITION INDEXED, SEARCHABLE PDFS OF VOLS 1–80
KATHLEEN GRATTAN POETRY AWARD
CASELBERG TRUST INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE
CHARLES BRASCH YOUNG WRITERS’ ESSAY COMPETITION SUBSCRIBE
WWW.OTAGO.AC.NZ/PRESS/LANDFALL/SUB-
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NEW REVIEWS EACH MONTH, LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL BOOKS
233
AUTUMN 2017
aotearoa new zealand arts and letters
70th Anniversary Issue
ANNOUNCING
the winner of the
Charles BraschYoung Writers’ Essay Competition 2017
14 I NEW BOOKSLANDFALL 235
EDITOR EMMA NEALE Results and winning essays from the 2018 Charles
COVER KATHRYN MADILL Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition
LANDFALL showcases new fiction and poetry,
NON-FICTION Joseph Barbon, Derek Schulz as well as biographical and critical essays and
POETRY Nick Ascroft, Tony Beyer, Mark cultural commentary.
Broatch, Brent Cantwell, Rachel Connor, Ruth
Corkill, Mark Edgecombe, Lynley Edmeades,
Johanna Emeney, Jess Fiebig, Kim Fulton,
Bernadette Hall, Michael Hall, Rebecca
Hawkes, Jac Jenkins, Erik Kennedy, Brent
Kininmont, Wen-Juenn Lee, Alice Miller, Art
Nahill, Janet Newman, Charles Olsen, Joanna
Preston, Jessie Puru, Jeremy Roberts, Sarah
Scott, Charlotte Simmonds, Tracey Slaughter,
Lynette Thorstensen, James Tremlett, Tam
Vosper, Dunstan Ward, Susan Wardell, Sugar Paperback, colour sections
Magnolia Wilson FICTION Aimee-Jane 215 x 165mm, 208pp
Anderson-O’Connor, Airini Beautrais, Danny ISBN 978-1-98-853124-3, $30
In print
Bultitude, Bonnie Etherington, Meagan
France, Isabel Haarhaus, Aaron Horrell, Zoë
Published with the assistance of
Meager, Dave Moore, Elizabeth Smither,
Creative New Zealand
Rachael Taylor REVIEWS Tom Brooking,
Chris Else, Ray Grover, Stephanie Johnson,
Owen Marshall, Genevieve Scanlan, Philip
Temple, Chris Tse ART Kathryn Madill, Russ Penny Howard, Haere Mai E Ipo, 2017,
Flatt, Penny Howard graphite on paper, 1000 x 710mm
NEW BOOKS I 15DAVID EGGLETON EDGELAND AND OTHER POEMS
The poetry in David Eggleton’s new collection possesses an intensity and driven energy,
using the poet’s recognisable signature oratory voice, strong in beat and measure, rooted in
rich traditions of chant, lament and ode.
Mashing together the lyrical and the slangy, celebrating local vernaculars while
simultaneously plugged in to a global zeitgeist of technobabble and fake news, Eggleton
recycles and ‘repurposes’ high visual culture and demotic aural culture.
Edgeland offers a tragicomic and surreal skewering of the cons, swindles, posturings and
flaws of damaged people on the make, dislocating the reader with high-speed jinks and
swerves.
A satirical eye interrogates ‘data’, media bilge, opinion, social change, extreme
experience, and worst-case-scenario extrapolations.
A menagerie of vivid characters burst off the page – including the man who mistook
the moon for a candy bar, instigators, prestidigitators, procurators, promulgators, Zorro
and Governor Grey – alongside a survey of 35 types of beard, an ode to ooze, metadada,
Gordon Ramsay’s pan-sizzled bull’s pizzle, a Baxterian moa, and various other waka
jumpers hailing from Jafaville to Jack’s Blowhole.
Edgeland is a dazzling display of polychromatic virtuosity, teeming with irrepressible
wordplay, startling imagery and anarchic wit, from one of New Zealand’s best-loved poets.
DAVID EGGLETON lives in Dunedin. He has previously published seven poetry collections,
poetry pamphlets, a poetry chapbook, and a book of short fiction, as well as a number of
works of non-fiction. His last book, The Conch Trumpet (Otago University Press, 2015), won
Paperback, illustrations
the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Award for poetry. Well known as a performance poet,
230 x 150mm, 112pp
David has also collaborated with musicians and practitioners of a variety of other art forms,
ISBN 978-1-98-853127-4, $27.50
from sculpture to fashion design. He was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary
In print
Achievement in 2016 and the Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writers’ Residency in
2017. David edited Landfall 2010–17.
16 I NEW BOOKSPOETA CILLA McQUEEN
Selected and new poems
Born in 1949, Bluff-based Cilla McQueen is one of New Zealand’s best-loved poets. Poeta:
Selected and new poems brings together a definitive selection of her poetry spanning five
decades, arranged by the poet in a thematic narrative that elucidates abiding themes while
maintaining a loose chronology of her creative life to date.
Of mixed Scottish and English heritage, McQueen is a translocated Hebridean, a
spokesperson variously for the southern islands and coast, Rakiura, Fiordland, Murihiku
and Dunedin. One of a few indispensable poetic voices of the south, she has long been
part of a social matrix of artists, among them Hone Tuwhare, Ralph Hotere and Marilynn
Webb, dedicated to bringing out the native brogue and colours of Southland–Otago.
Poeta gathers together poems from the poet’s 14 previous volumes, punctuated by 11
striking drawings, and also includes a range of new work that shows her riddling creativity
continuing to grow and evolve. Collectively, the poems demonstrate a versatile and diligent
wordsmith never content to sit on her laurels, ever experimenting and improving in her
attempt to write the world’s poem.
Poet, teacher and artist CILLA McQUEEN has published 15 collections, three of which have
won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. Her most recent work is a poetic memoir, In
a Slant Light (OUP, 2016). Other titles from OUP are Markings, Axis, Soundings, Fire-penny,
The Radio Room and Edwin’s Egg. In 2008 Cilla received an Hon. Litt.D. from the University
of Otago, and was the New Zealand National Library Poet Laureate 2009–11. In 2010 she
received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry. Cilla lives and works
in the southern port of Motupōhue, Bluff. Hardback, illustrations
220 x 155mm, 296pp
ISBN 978-1-98-853128-1, $39.95
September 2018
NEW BOOKS I 17ALISON GLENNY THE FAREWELL TOURIST
Some afternoons a fog rolled down the hallway. On others,
the staircase groaned with moisture. A finger laid carelessly
on a bannister dislodged a ledge of rime. She lifted the hem
of her dress to avoid the damp in the passageway, wore
knitted gloves in the kitchen. She was lying in the bath
when the glacier pushed through the wall. She sank deeper
into the water to escape the chill that settled on her
shoulders. Trying to ignore the white haze, to lose herself
between the pages of her book.
Pushing against the boundaries of what poetry might be, Alison Glenny’s The Farewell
Tourist is haunting, many-layered and slightly surreal.
In ‘The Magnetic Process’ sequence, a man and a woman inhabit a polar world, adrift in
zones of divergence where dreams are filled with snow, icebergs and sinking ships. Their
scientific instruments and observations measure a fragmented and uncertain space where
conventional perspectives are violated.
In a series of histories – of the Atmosphere, of the Honeymoon – footnotes reference
vanished texts. By turns mysterious, ominous and evocative, they represent connections to
an obscured narrative of disintegration and icy melancholy.
Bill Manhire, judge of the 2018 Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award, has written: There is
some beautiful writing, but – though there is sometimes talk of music and musical instruments
– the text is not written primarily for the ear. [This work] takes full advantage of the white
pages on which the words appear. In particular it plays with ideas of erasure, as if all our
Paperback, 230 x 150mm, 80pp
words, like any evidence of human presence, can be extinguished by a fresh fall of snow.
ISBN 978-1-98-853129-8, $27.50
August 2018 ALISON GLENNY was born in Christchurch and currently lives in Paekākāriki. She has an MA
in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington, a postgraduate certificate in Antarctic
WINNER OF THE KATHLEEN GRATTAN Studies from the University of Canterbury, and has taught creative writing at Whitireia New
POETRY AWARD 2017 Zealand. Her work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, and online.
18 I NEW BOOKSWHISPER OF A CROW’S WING MAJELLA CULLINANE
Published simultaneously in Ireland by Salmon Poetry, Majella Cullinane’s remarkable
second collection, Whisper of a Crow’s Wing, is the work of a poet with a distinct and Whisper of a
powerful voice.
These poems weigh and examine oppositions – the distance of time and place, the balance
of life and death, the poet’s New Zealand home and her Irish heritage. Cullinane conjures the
Crow’s Wing
ghosts that haunt places and objects, our inner and outer world, with rich, physical language:
barter the night for the whorl of a wave’s tongue,
the relish of brine. Know what it is to untangle
light from the tooth of a roving tide. (Invitation)
She writes with lyrical intensity about motherhood and family life, including the
experience of miscarriage, and the process of moving through grief and loss to a place of Majella Cullinane
acceptance and healing.
This is a profound collection from a poet alive to the hidden world of memory and
imagination, of the sublime in the everyday, tempered always by a shadow of the fragility of
life and love.
There is an elegance and poise and care in the language of these poems, an unobtrusive
mastery and ease in their cadences and rhythms. – VINCENT O’SULLIVAN
Irish-born MAJELLA CULLINANE has lived in New Zealand since 2008. In 2011 she published
her first poetry collection, Guarding the Flame, with Salmon Poetry in Ireland. In 2014 she Paperback, 150 x 230mm, 88pp
was awarded the Robert Burns Fellowship at Otago University, and in 2017 was the Sir James ISBN 978-1-98-853122-9, $27.50
Wallace Trust/Otago University Writer in Residence at the Pah Homestead in Auckland. In print
She won the 2017 Caselberg International Prize for Poetry, and has been shortlisted for the
Strokestown and Bridport International Poetry Prizes. Majella is a PhD candidate at the Centre
for Irish and Scottish Studies, Otago University. She lives in Port Chalmers with her partner
Andrew and their son Robbie.
NEW BOOKS I 19MICHAEL STEVEN WALKING TO JUTLAND STREET
Walking to Jutland Street is the impressive first book-length collection by up-and-coming
Auckland-based poet Michael Steven. The title refers to Dunedin’s industrial wharf
precinct where some of the poet’s friends shared a flat in 2010. A poem about friendship
in the face of the other, ‘Walking to Jutland Street’ vividly recreates their evening
‘constitutional’ from the flat via the bridge over train tracks to the city and back, with its
inebriated, surreal, sometimes nightmarish inhabitants.
A poet of gritty, day-to-day urban New Zealand reality (whether depicting teenage
drug dealing, alcoholics or the night shelter), Steven is equally a writer steeped in literary
tradition, Buddhist mysticism and world-historical narrative. His poetry seeks the
allegorical significance of the present moment/event. In this pursuit, his literary cousins
are Olds, Orr, Mitchell, Dickson, Johnson and Baxter.
Even in tone, intelligent and expressive, Michael Steven’s poetry is all the more effective for
its sparing use of vivid imagery. – CILLA McQUEEN
MICHAEL STEVEN was born in 1977. His poems, essays and short fiction have appeared in
places such as brief, Ika, Landfall, Phantom Billstickers Café Reader and Poetry New Zealand
Yearbook. He has worked as an electrician, a stage manager and a bookstore clerk. He lives in
West Auckland with his partner and son.
Paperback, 150 x 230mm, 88pp
ISBN 978-1-98-853118-2, $27.50
In print
20 I NEW BOOKSTHE EXPATRIATE MYTH HELEN BONES
New Zealand writers and the colonial world
Many New Zealand writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries travelled
extensively or lived overseas for a time, and they often led very interesting lives. The
received wisdom is that they were forced to leave these colonial backblocks in search of
literary inspiration and publishing opportunities.
In The Expatriate Myth, Helen Bones presents a challenge to this conventional
understanding, based on detailed historical and empirical research. Was it actually
necessary for them to leave to find success? How prevalent was expatriatism among New
Zealand writers? Did their experiences fit the usual tropes about expatriatism and exile?
Were they fleeing an oppressive society lacking in literary opportunity?
In the field of literary studies, scholars are often consumed with questions about
‘national’ literature and ‘what it means to be a New Zealander’. And yet many of New
Zealand’s writers living overseas operated in a transnational way, taking advantage of
colonial networks in a way that belies any notion of a single national allegiance. Most who
left New Zealand, even if they were away for a time, continued to write about and interact
with their homeland, and in many cases came back.
In this fascinating and clear-sighted book, Helen Bones offers a fresh perspective on
some hoary New Zealand literary chestnuts.
HELEN BONES is a New Zealander living in Australia, where she teaches history and has
a research position in digital humanities at Western Sydney University. She has written
a number of articles for literary and historical journals, and contributed two chapters to
Treasures of the University of Canterbury Library, eds Chris Jones and Bronwyn Matthews
Paperback, 150 x 230mm, 242pp
(Canterbury University Press, 2011).
ISBN 978-1-98-853117-5, $35
In print
NEW BOOKS I 21BARBARA BROOKES, JANE McCABE PAST CARING?
AND ANGELA WANHALLA EDITORS
Women, work and emotion
Are women past caring? Care is essential to social relationships and individual well-being.
It is woven into New Zealand’s key social institutions, such as the family, and is also
embedded in societal expectations around state provision of health and welfare. Care is so
vital, in fact, that it is often taken for granted and goes unnoticed and unrewarded.
Historical and philosophical enquiry have largely ignored the issue of care, yet it raises
profound questions about gender, justice and morality. The essays in this volume raise
those questions directly – at the level of abstraction where prominent New Zealand
women philosophers grappled with the political implications, and on the ground at the
level of family relationships.
Understanding the history of care requires attention to personal narratives, such as a
Māori grandmother’s story, a Rarotongan leader’s concept of duty to her people, or the
sense of service that drove a long-term social worker. Memories of childhood night-
time care are carried across the ocean from North East India. The depiction of sole-carer
mothers in New Zealand film suggests a ‘caring’ alternative to the celebrated concept of
‘man alone’. The case studies examined focus on the everyday nature of care operating
across domestic, institutional and political spaces, and build upon areas of strength in
women’s history with its interest in family, motherhood, health, welfare, education and
employment.
The foundations of Past Caring? lie with Making Women Visible, a national conference
on women’s history held at the University of Otago in February 2016. This important
volume opens up a set of perspectives and experiences of caring to begin a conversation
Paperback with flaps, about urgent questions facing New Zealand society. How do we recognise, reward and do
230 x 150mm, 304pp approx justice to those acts that hold our society together?
ISBN 978-1-98-853134-2, $45
October 2018
22 I NEW BOOKSBETWEEN LAB AND KITCHEN DIANA BROWN
The unconventional career of Dr Muriel Bell
Whether or not you have heard of pioneering nutritionist Muriel Bell, she has had a
profound effect on your health.
Appointed New Zealand’s first state nutritionist in 1940, a position she held for almost
a quarter-century, Muriel Bell was behind ground-breaking public health schemes such as
milk in schools, iodised salt and water fluoridation. Her pioneering research on vitamins
and minerals worked to prevent deficiency diseases in children, and her work on fats and
cholesterol led to interventions to prevent coronary heart disease.
As a scientist, Bell was committed to evidence-based investigation, and at the base of
her commitment to science lay a deep social concern, especially for women and children.
In service to this cause she worked tirelessly. As a lecturer in physiology from 1923 to
1927, Muriel Bell had been one of the first women academics at Otago Medical School.
In 1937 she became a foundation member of the Medical Research Council, serving for
two decades while simultaneously she was the sole woman on the Board of Health. Her
nutritional advice – common sense to us today but revolutionary at the time – was to eat
more fruit and vegetables and to cut down on sugar, fat and meat.
Muriel Bell was a trailblazer by anyone’s definition, but her devotion to the cause came at
great personal cost, as Diana Brown relates in this long-overdue biography.
DIANA BROWN graduated with an MA in History with Distinction from Otago University
in 2006, and was awarded a grant by the New Zealand History Research Trust Fund to write
this book. She has lived overseas since 2008, working at writing, teaching and curriculum
development, editing and translation. She speaks several European languages.
Paperback, illustrations
230 x 150mm, 304pp approx
ISBN 978-1-98-853130-4, $35
October 2018
NEW BOOKS I 23R.J. (JO) BUNCE SLIPPERY JIM
James Macandrew of Otago
This is the biography of one of New Zealand’s most colourful and persuasive politicians.
When James Macandrew arrived in Dunedin from Scotland in 1851, other settlers were
impressed by his energy and enthusiasm for new initiatives. With his finger in a lot of
commercial pies, he set about making himself a handsome income which he eventually
lost, declaring himself bankrupt and ending up in debtors’ prison.
Politics became another enterprise at which Macandrew threw himself with a passion.
He was a member of the Otago Provincial Council for 10 years, during which time he held
almost all the elected positions in that body. He was Superintendent of Otago for a further
decade, and at the same time he was a member of parliament for 29 years.
This is the warts-and-all story of a Victorian settler who was a devoted family man,
a staunch Presbyterian and a consummate politician. It examines the numerous local
events that benefited from Macandrew’s touch – including the University of Otago, the
Art School (now Otago Polytechnic School of Art), the Normal School (later the College
of Education) – along with his contributions to the building of roads, railways, ports,
harbours, schools and churches.
Macandrew made plenty of enemies along the way, and has been severely judged by
history. This re-examination of his life and political work reveals a man who both inspired
and infuriated the citizens of Otago, and New Zealand, for almost four decades.
JO BUNCE has held teaching and administrative positions in most levels of the education
Paperback, illustrations sector, as well as public relations and liaison positions for government departments, Otago
240 x 170mm, 304pp approx Polytechnic, the University of Otago and the Royal New Zealand Navy. Later in life he
ISBN 978-1-98-853135-9, $45 gravitated towards historical study and research, and this book is the result.
December 2018
24 I NEW BOOKSRECENT BOOKS NEW BOOKS I 25
REDMER YSKA A STRANGE BEAUTIFUL EXCITEMENT
Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington
How does a city make a writer? Described by Fiona Kidman as a ‘ravishing, immersing
read’, A Strange Beautiful Excitement is a ‘wild ride’ through the Wellington of Katherine
Mansfield’s childhood.
From the grubby, wind-blasted streets of Thorndon to the hushed green valley of Karori,
author Redmer Yska, himself raised in Karori, retraces Mansfield’s old ground: the sights,
sounds and smells of the rickety colonial capital, as experienced by the budding writer.
Along the way his encounters and dogged research – into her Beauchamp ancestry, the
social landscape, the festering, deadly surroundings – lead him (and us) to reevaluate long-
held conclusions about the writer’s shaping years. They also lead to a thrilling discovery – a
short story previously unknown to Mansfield scholars, written when Mansfield was aged
11. The story is printed in full herein.
This haunting and beautifully vivid book combines fact and fiction, biography and
memoir, as Yska rediscovers Mansfield’s Wellington, unearthing her childhood as he goes,
shining a new lamp on old territory.
It’s not enough to say I immensely enjoyed A Strange Beautiful Excitement …
it’s simply splendid. – DAME FIONA KIDMAN
… the best account I have ever read of Wellington and Karori as they were in
Hardback, full colour Mansfield’s day … Vivid and vigorous, it is a pleasure to read. – KATHLEEN JONES,
198 x 150mm, 272pp KM biographer
ISBN 978-0-947522-54-4, $39.95
In print
REDMER YSKA is a Wellington-born writer and historian. He has published books about
postwar teenagers (‘bodgies and widgies’), Dutch New Zealanders like himself, and a
commissioned history of Wellington City. He was awarded the National Library Research
Fellowship to write a history of NZ Truth, published in 2010. Yska was the major recipient of
a New Zealand History Research Trust Fund Award in 2014, allowing him to write this book.
26 I NEW BOOKS
RECENT BOOKSUNDREAMED OF … PRISCILLA PITTS &
ANDREA HOTERE
50 years of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship
In 1966 Michael Illingworth, whose oil painting Adam and Eve appears on the front cover
of this book, was awarded the inaugural Frances Hodgkins Fellowship. For the first time
in New Zealand a practising artist was given a studio and paid a salary to make art for a
whole year. Such support, as Frances Hodgkins herself wrote from her own experience, was
capable of ‘yielding up riches – undreamed of ’. Fifty years later, the fellowship is still going
strong.
This sumptuous book brings together the art and the stories of half a century of Frances
Hodgkins fellows. Arts commentator Priscilla Pitts writes about their work, while journalist
Andrea Hotere interviews the artists about their lives and sources of inspiration.
The result is a vibrant celebration of the talent fostered through New Zealand’s foremost
visual arts residency.
PRISCILLA PITTS has had a long career writing about the visual arts, with a particular focus
on contemporary New Zealand art. She is the author of Contemporary New Zealand Sculpture:
Themes and issues and a founding editor of Antic, a journal of arts, literature, theory and
criticism. She was formerly director of Artspace (Auckland), the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery
(New Plymouth) and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. More
recently she was General Manager Heritage Destinations at Heritage New Zealand, and these
days freelances as a writer, exhibition curator and museum consultant. Hardback, full colour
280 x 220mm, 232pp
ANDREA HOTERE has a background in historical research and investigative journalism. ISBN 978-0-947522-56-8, $59.95
She began her career at the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, before working at the BBC In print
in London, and in New Zealand on various publications including the Sunday Star-Times and
New Zealand Education Review. She has also written for magazines, researched and produced Published with the assistance of
award-winning television documentaries and edited a book on architecture. Creative New Zealand
RECENT
NEW BOOKS I 27JONATHAN WEST THE FACE OF NATURE
An environmental history of the Otago Peninsula
Bounded by the wild waves of the Pacific on the east, and the more sheltered harbour on
the west, the Otago Peninsula is a remarkable landscape that has undergone dramatic
changes since it first attracted human settlement.
In The Face of Nature: An environmental history of the Otago Peninsula
Jonathan West explores what people and place made of one another from the arrival of the
first Polynesians until the end of the nineteenth century.
The Peninsula has always been one of the places in Otago most important to Māori. In
1844 they reluctantly agreed to split it with the British, but the land Māori retained has
remained at the core of their history in the region. The British settlers divided their part of
the Peninsula into small farms whose owners transformed it from native forest into cow
country that fed a booming Dunedin – at that point New Zealand’s leading commercial city.
This rigorously researched, beautifully illustrated local history documents the rapid
environmental change that ensued. It incorporates a rich array of maps, paintings and
photographs to illustrate the making – and unmaking – of this unique landscape. In doing
so it illustrates why the Otago Peninsula is an ideal location through which to understand
the larger environmental history of these islands.
Balanced more equitably between Māori and Pākehā sources than any other
major work on the area, this book is an important contribution to New Zealand’s
environmental history. – ATHOLL ANDERSON, Emeritus Professor, ANU
Paperback with flaps, full colour JONATHAN WEST was born and raised in and around Dunedin. While indulging his love of
240 x 170mm, 384pp tramping in the South Island back country he collected degrees from the University of Otago,
ISBN 978-1-927322-38-3, $49.95 culminating in a PhD in history from which this book emerged. He worked as an historian at the
In print Waitangi Tribunal for several years and more recently joined the Office of Treaty Settlements.
Jonathan’s publications include contributions to Wild Heart: The possibility of wilderness in
Aotearoa New Zealand (OUP, 2011), The Lives of Colonial Objects (OUP, 2015) and New Zealand
and the Sea (BWB, forthcoming). He lives with his wife Kate and their children in Lower Hutt.
28 I NEW BOOKS
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