Literature and Authorship in New Zealand. By Noel Mulgan. P.E.N.
Books. (Allen-and Unwin. 2g.)
THE sense of exile—the excitement and nostalgia of the up-rooted- may have goaded into greatness such writers as Joyce or Henry James. On the Pioneering Generations in New Zealand (c. t840- 189o) it had no such literary effect, and this was natural enough. They were too busy to write of the adventures they were living through, or too smothered in filial veneration for British life and art-forms to make what they did write anything but derivative. Slowly there emerged a more distinctively New Zealand literature, in the works of W. P. Reeves, whom the essayist and historian Noel Mulgan calls " the most distinguished of our men of letters," in some of Katharine Mansfield's stories and those of Frank Sargeson in our own day. Mr. Mulgan, President of the New Zealand Centre of the P.E.N., acts the amiable compere, concerned to show everyone at their best. His short account is not criticism, but a useful guide-book, particularly informative on the difficulties of the author in this country. Thus the population of New Zealand is only half as big again as Glasgow's, and a New Zealand author can- not reasonably look for a greater sale than soo copies in his own land. More sinister, " criticism is apt to be resented, and attacks on institutions and personages may raise storms from which it is not easy to find shelter." Mr. Mulgan persuades one that this is inevitable in such a small community, and that the future is pro- mising. His book leaves the impression that hitherto there has been far more authorship than literature in New Zealand, and that good writers have been very wise to migrate.
Previous page
