27 Oct 2015
A new book by former publisher, Elizabeth Caffin, tells the story of the evolution of New Zealand’s literary culture over forty years.
The Deepening Stream is a history of the New Zealand Literary Fund, which operated from 1947 to 1988, when it was absorbed into the Arts Council. The Fund was responsible for helping to support the careers of many top writers including Maurice Gee, Fiona Kidman and Witi Ihimaera.
Begun by editor and writer Andrew Mason, and assisted by a grant from Creative New Zealand, Elizabeth Caffin continued to research and write The Deepening Stream after Andrew died in 2009.
The history features strong personalities, from poets to politicians, and their dramas and disappointments, hopes and humiliations. It charts the growing confidence of New Zealand writers and the infrastructure supporting them, and gives vivid pictures of individual writers, fledgling publishers and struggling magazines. It recounts how New Zealand readers gradually came to value their own literature.
Published by Victoria University Press, $40.
The Deepening Stream is out now.
Kirsten McDougall
Publicist, Victoria University Press
dd +64 4 463 6531
Mob +64 21 165 8250
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