Editor: Mary Edmond-Paul
ISBN13: 978877372582
Publisher: Otago University Press. http://www.otago.ac.nz/press
Page count: 226
Price: NZ$40.00
Summary: This book of critical essays by twelve New Zealand and international academics, explores New Zealand writer Robin Hyde's poetry, short stories, journalism and novels through a contemporary lens.
Hyde's writing of the 1920's and 1930's was largely dismissed by her contemporary writers and critics and relegated to that of a minor contribution to the New Zealand literary scene. In the mid-1980's her work came to prominence mainly via internationally-driven feminism and feminist discource.
Her life is frequently portrayed as short and tragic. She was a prolific writer, albeit often impoverished and misunderstood in her lifetime. Robin Hyde, born Iris Wilkinson, is best known today for her novels Passport to Hell, Nor The Years Condemn and The Godwits Fly.
Iris Wilkinson was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and came to New Zealand when she was only a month old with her English-Australian parents. They settled in the not so illustrious suburbs of Newtown, Melrose and Berhampore. She went to Wellington Girls' College, and at seventeen she joined the staff of The Dominion.
The next year she required a knee operation which plagued her for the rest of her life. She left hospital dependent on opiates for pain relief and, to make matters worse, her lover left for the UK. In 1925 she wrote a column about parliament and, while receiving treatment for her knee, she had a brief affair in Rotorua which left her pregnant. In April 1926 she gave birth in Sydney to a son, Robin Hyde, who died soon after. Iris took his name for her writing in years to come.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Hyde worked for New Zealand Truth, Christchurch Sun, Wanganui Chronicle and the New Zealand Observer. She was known for the controversial comments that she placed into her shopping or society columns. She had a passionate interest in the role of the poor and local and international politics.
Poverty, morphine and mental illness were a continuing influence upon her life. She became pregnant to a married journalist and gave birth to a son, Derek Challis in 1930, who she placed in a nursing home because of her poverty.
In mid-1933, Hyde tried to drown herself in Auckland and was placed in a basement ward of Auckland Hospital, after which she was fortunate to stay at the Grey Lodge where she completed a number of novels and two collections of poetry.
She became more assertively feminist and socialist, and in 1938 she sailed for England, stopping en route in the war zone of China, her experiences recounted in the harrowing Dragon Rampant.
Hyde reached London in September 1938 and, as war approached, she became more depressed despite her increasingly successful publishing success in London. She committed suicide at the age of thirty-three.
Whereas in her lifetime the critics tended to largely disparage her work, Hyde's writing has now come to prominence and Mary Edmond-Paul has gathered an esteemed number of New Zealand and international academics to critique the various stylistic and thematic issues that arise out of the significant wealth of Hyde's writing. It is a tribute to the richness and variety of the writer's contribution to the literature of her nation that each essay covers a unique description of her work and life. The essays investigate a diverse range of topics including those of the carnival, the gothic, fantasy, feminism, local and international politics, and war.
There is much to be appreciated in the book as it delves into what it was like to be a female writer in the 1930s, and it reveals much of the literary and socio-political history of the age. Most of the essays contain significant tracts from Hyde's work which assist in understanding the essay, and also encourage the reader to read Hyde's work themselves.
The writing does tend towards the academic, in varying degrees, although mostly it is clearly written. At times a contributer appears to be using Hyde's writing to make a point (as did her contemporary critics), but overall this well-edited selection of essays is a fascinating overview of the vitality, wit and richness of Hyde's literature.
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