Imagining New Zealand/Aotearoa: a century of the short story

Wilson, J. M. (2017) Imagining New Zealand/Aotearoa: a century of the short story. Invited Keynote presented to: Dan Davin Short Story Conference, Invercargill, New Zealand, 01-03 September 2017.

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Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Invited Keynote)
Abstract:	This paper examines the ways that the nation space of New Zealand/Aotearoa is imagined in short stories written over the last century. It will discuss how key writers have shaped images of the country in response to its diverse landscapes, its ‘ends of the earth’ location and different social and ethnic groups; representing the nation in short fiction as a site for voices and communities whose intersecting words and dialogues collectively convey the image of a ‘national family’. I will make reference to stories translated into Spanish in the volume, Un Pais de cuento: Veinte relatos de Nuevo Zelando (‘A Country of Tales: 20 Stories from New Zealand’), published by the University of Zaragoza Press, which I coedited with the translator, Paloma Fresno Calleja. I will outline our principles of selection using the categories of gender, ethnicity, region and date, and referring to the New Zealand short story canon as consecrated in anthologies such as Dan Davin’s Classic New Zealand Short Stories (1953), Vincent O’Sullivan’s Oxford Book of New Zealand Short Stories (1978) and Marion McLeod and Bill Manhire’s Some Other Country, 4th ed. (2008). My discussion of how distinctive images of nation and its borders emerge as the literary tradition developed, will include subsequent redefinitions and reimaginings of the New Zealand imaginary as later writers have built on and reworked familiar locations, incidents and identities, showing continuity as well as change. The limited sales of our volume in the global Spanish-speaking marketplace since its publication in 2014, however, suggest that stories tied to a national brand tend not to attract new, international readerships. By contrast some recent stories that did not make it into our anthology, that demonstrate global trends and patterns and hence display a more limited national focus, might be better suited to today’s circulation of culture. These literary responses to the demands of the global marketplace may mean more adaptability and flexibility for stories in travelling beyond national borders, but there are consequences: might this also mean long-term a loss of the New Zealand story’s distinctiveness as a local/national production?
Uncontrolled Keywords:	New Zealand short story, Dan Davin, Un Pais de Cuento: Veinte Relatos de Nueva Zelanda, globalisation, New Zealand national tradition, the Institute of Modern Letters
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature > PR8309 English literature: Provincial, local, etc. > PR9639.3 New Zealand literature
Creators:	Wilson, Janet M
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes:	University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Education & Humanities > English and Creative Writing University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Research Centre > Centre for Critical and Creative Writing Faculties > Faculty of Education & Humanities > English and Creative Writing Research Centres > Centre for Critical and Creative Writing
Date:	1 September 2017
Date Type:	Publication
Event Title:	Dan Davin Short Story Conference
Event Dates:	01-03 September 2017
Event Location:	Invercargill, New Zealand
Event Type:	Conference
Language:	English
Status:	Published / Disseminated
Related URLs:	Conference
References:	References Beattie, Graham and Stephanie Johnson, eds. Penguin 25 New Fiction. Auckland: Penguin Books NZ Ltd., 1998. Davin, Dan, ed. New Zealand Short Stories. Oxford Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1953. Davin, Dan. The Gorse Blooms Pale: Southland Short Stories, ed., Janet Wilson. Dunedin; Otago University Press, 2008. Fresno Calleja, Paoma and Janet Wilson, eds. Un Pais de Cuento: Veinte Relatos de Nueva Zelanda. [A Fairy Tale Land] Zaragoza: University of Zaragoza Press, 2014. Ihimaera, Witi, ed. Where’s Waari?: A History of the Maori through the Short Story. Wellington: Reed, 2000. Ihimaera Witi and Tina Makereti, eds. Black Marks on the White Page. Auckland: Vintage, 2017. Kidman, Fiona, ed., The Best New Zealand Fiction, Vol. 1. Auckland: Vintage, 2004. Kidman, Fiona, ed,. The Best New Zealand Fiction, Vol 2. Auckland: Vintage, 2005. Lark, Sarah. In the Land of the Long White Cloud, translated by D.W. Lovett. Amazon Crossing, 2012 Lay, Graeme and Stephen Stratford, eds. Home: New Short Stories by New Zealand Writers. Auckland; Random House, 2005. Manhire, Bill and Marion McLeod, eds. Some Other Country: New Zealand’s Best Short Stories. 4th ed. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2008. Marshall, Owen, sel., Essential New Zealand Short Stories. Auckland: Random House, 2002. McNeill, Dougal. “The Short Story in Aotearoa/New Zealand.” In The Novel in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the South Pacific since 1950, ed Paul Sharrad, Coral Ann Howellls, Gerry Turcotte. The Oxford History in English Vol. 12. Oxford: Oxford University press, 2017, pp. 421-35. Morris, Paula. The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories. Auckland: Penguin 2009. O’Sullivan, Vincent, ed. The Oxford Book of New Zealand Short Stories. Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1994. Sargeson, Frank. Frank Sargeson’s Stories, Introduction by Janet Wilson. Auckland: Cape Catley Ltd., 2010.
URI:	http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/10052

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