Showing results for "ck stead"

We all know the story of Jesus told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but what about the version according to Judas?In this witty, original and teasingly controversial account, some forty years after the death of Jesus, Judas finally tells the story as he remembers it. Looking back on his childhood and youth from an old age the gospel writers denied him, Judas recalls his friendship with Jesus; their schooling together; their families; the people who would go on to be disciples and ...

As their freinds leave for Europe and the government gets tough with the unions, a bohemian community is enjoying the euphoria of youth.It was their dreamtime. The wider world beckoned from the white ships sailing past Rangitoto Island, but the dream was also here on the Takapuna shoreline of Auckland, where the artist Melior Farbro grew his vegetables and let Cecilia Skyways follow her own form of Zen Buddhism in his garden hut. Where Curl Skidmore, his brilliant young head full o...

Recently divorced New Zealander Sam Nola returns to London, where he spent two years in his early twenties. It is early 2003, and on both sides of Atlantic the case for military intervention in Iraq is being made - or fabricated.But life for Sam has never been better: a grown-up, half-French daughter from a long ago affair has recently got in touch, and he has walked into a lucrative role in the booming banking sector.It is only when he learns of the deaths of two friends w...

A chance meeting has New Zealand writer Laszlo Winter thinking back to his time in London in the late 1950s. The Empire might be in a state of collapse, but for young 'colonials', England remains a mythical place that draws them from the farthest corners of the globe.There was Australian Samantha Conlan, clever, desirable, hopelessly in love with married Jewish New Zealander Freddy Goldstein, who carried with him a dark history. Rajiv, an earnest young Indian at work on a study of ...

Max Jackson, a New Zealander living and lecturing in Paris, has a complicated arrangement with his estranged French wife, Louise. In love with his younger Sorbonne colleague Sylvie, he finds himself entangled with Helen, a troubled young English student.When a Cezanne painting goes missing from Louise's apartment, the boundaries he has struggled to maintain threaten to collapse.Infused with literary musings and the spirit of Paris, The Necessary Angel is as much an...

In his 85th year, C. K. Stead's new collection leads us deep inside the life of the poet. He looks back at his younger self, remembering old loves and cringing at his 'sonnets' lugubrious rhyming'. He tells us of those who have gone – Derrida ('that Derrida whom I derided died') and Curnow ('Allen's as dead now / as an old friend can be which is / hardly at all), Peter Porter and Lucien Freud. And he takes us along with him on the poetical life: from Dogshit Park in Budapest to a Zagreb bo...

Having left the university to write full-time at the end of volume two, Stead throws himself into his work. In novels like Sister Hollywood and My Name Was Judas, criticism in the London Review of Books and the Financial Times, poetry and memoir, Stead establishes his international reputation as novelist, poet, and critic. It is also a period when Stead's fearless lucidity on matters literary and political embroil him in argument—from The Bone Peopl...

A poignant reflection on life, love, and loss through the lens of classical poetry.C.K. Stead returns with a collection of poems inspired by Catullus, meditating on themes of aging, memory, and the enduring power of art. Through vivid imagery and heartfelt reflection, Stead explores the complexities of love, the inevitability of loss, and the beauty found in the half light of a dying day.For readers who appreciate the timeless wisdom of classical literature...

Over a quarter of a century, C. K. Stead has built up a widely accessible collection of reviews and critical essays on New Zealand literature. In the Glass Case covers a wide spectrum of New Zealand writers, who are examined from a remarkably consistent viewpoint. The title is symbolic: New Zealand books were once held in a glass-fronted bookcase at the University of Auckland library. These were considered rare, although they are now out on the open shelves. Stead's views are often controv...

Exploring literature, cultures, and surroundings—both physical and social—the poems in this collection are firmly attached to the author's memories. With appearances by various other literary fellows, in person, dream, or conversation—including Curnow, Kawharu, Sargeson, Creeley, Mansfield, and Wordsworth—this book also features warmly translated versions of poems by Montale, Vita, and Jaccottet alongside glimpses of fantails and elegies for friends. Urging its readers to stay alert and pa...

'A vivid and engrossing historical novel' Daily TelegraphSpanning three years in the life of the writer Katherine Mansfield during the First World War, Mansfield follows the ups and downs of her relationship with Jack Middleton Murry and her struggle to write the 'new kind of fiction' which she felt the times demanded. She is restless, constantly on the move, in and out of London, to and from France, even into the war zone, to be with her French lover, novelist Fr...

A sequel to the successful books Kin of Place and The Writer at Work, this collection of critical writing takes the reader on a personal journey from the author's earliest discovery of poetry as a young man to his latest experiences on the literary trail. This trip through literary history involves many writers, including Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot, Michael King, and Elizabeth Knox. The book also includes a series of journal extracts that allow readers to get closer...