New Zealand literature

Prose and poetry of New Zealand. The short stories of Katherine Mansfield in the early 20th century became internationally known, and in 1985 Keri Hulme won the UK-based Booker Prize for her novel The Bone People.

19th century Among interesting pioneer records of the mid- to late 19th century are those of Edward Jerningham Wakefield and F E Maning; and A First Year in Canterbury Settlement by Samuel Butler. Earliest of the popular poets was Thomas Bracken, author of the New Zealand national song, followed by native-born Jessie Mackay and W Pember Reeves, though the latter is better known as the author of the prose account of New Zealand The Long White Cloud; and Ursula Bethell (1874–1945).

20th century Mansfield's stories were written in Europe, but she drew on her New Zealand background. Tutira, the Story of a New Zealand Sheep Station (1926), by W H Guthrie Smith (1861–1940), struck a specifically New Zealand note. The 1930s saw the debut of an exponent of detective fiction, Dame Ngaio Marsh. Poetry of a new quality was written by R A K Mason (1905–1971) in the 1920s, and in the 1930s by a group of which A R D Fairburn (1904–1957), with a witty conversational turn, and Allen Curnow, poet, critic, and anthologist, are the most striking. In fiction, the 1930s were remarkable for the short stories of Frank Sargeson and Roderick Finlayson (1904–1992), and the talent of John Mulgan (1911–1945), who is remembered both for his novel Man Alone and for his posthumous factual account of World War II, in which he died, Report on Experience (1947). Kendrick Smithyman (1922– ) struck a metaphysical note in poetry, James K Baxter (1926–1972) published fluent lyrics, and Janet Frame has a brooding depth of meaning in such novels as The Rainbirds (1968) and Intensive Care (1970).