1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910477053503321

Autore

Richardson Len

Titolo

People and Place : The West Coast of New Zealand's South Island in history and literature / / Len Richardson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Acton, Australian Capital Territory : , : ANU Press, , 2020

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (216 pages)

Collana

ANU.Lives series in biography

Disciplina

993

Soggetti

New Zealand - Intellectual life - 20th century

New Zealand literature - 20th century - History and criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Intro -- Acknowledgements -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Region and Nation -- 3. Philip Ross May: Making a Goldfield: Populating a Wilderness -- 4. Patrick O'Farrell: The Reds and the Greens -- 5. Bill Pearson: 1908 and all that: Coal Flat -- 6. Beyond the 1960s I: Literary Reflections -- 7. Beyond the 1960s II: The Historians -- 8. Conclusion: Enduring Past -- Elusive Future -- Bibliography.

Sommario/riassunto

This book traces the enduring relationship between history, people and place that has shaped the character of a single region in a manner perhaps unique within the New Zealand experience. It explores the evolution of a distinctive regional literature that both shaped and was shaped by the physical and historical environment that inspired it. Looking westwards towards Australia and long shut off within New Zealand by the South Island's rugged Southern Alps, the West Coast was a land of gold, coal and timber. In the 1950s and 1960s, it nurtured a literature that embodied a sense of belonging to an Australasian world and captured the aspirations of New Zealand's emergent radical nationalism. More recent West Coast writers, observing the hollowing out of their communities, saw in miniature and in advance the growing gulf between city and regional economies aligned to an older economic order losing its relevance. Were they chronicling the last hurrah of a retreating age or crafting a literature of regional resistance?