Penguin launches Book of New Zealand War Writing

Warfare, both at home and abroad, has shaped the way New Zealand defines itself: through camaraderie and courage, patriotism and politics, identity and nationhood. Soldiers writing from the front, journalists on the ground, biographers examining the lives of key figures, poets, novelists and playwrights reflecting on the experience of combat – these have all helped to form the way we think about war and so the way we think about ourselves.
The Penguin Book of New Zealand War Writing presents a rich interplay of writing about our country’s many military engagements. It features creative responses to conflict, such as a waiata written about an inter-tribal skirmish, short stories on the World Wars, extracts from plays and novels set in such campaigns as Chunuk Bair and Vietnam, and poems by some of our most famous writers. With works by both big literary names, including James K. Baxter, Janet Frame, Denis Glover, Allen Curnow and Hone Tuwhare, as well as little-known pieces and forgotten writers, The Penguin Book of New Zealand War Writing provides both a rarely seen depth and variety of insights into our nation’s war experiences.
There are vivid accounts by journalists reporting home as well as by soldiers recalling their experiences in the trenches, the desert or in the air. Rounding out this fascinating collection are thoughtful retrospective commentaries on the impact of wars from precolonial times up to Afghanistan.

About the authors
Harry Ricketts is a professor in the English Programme at Victoria University of Wellington and also teaches creative non-fiction in the International Institute of Modern Letters. He has published over 30 books. These include two biographies (The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling and Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War), personal essays (How to Live Elsewhere; How to Catch a Cricket Match) and ten collections of poems (most recently Half Dark). He has also co-edited several anthologies of New Zealand poetry and a collection of new essays about World War I (How We Remember: New Zealanders and the First World War).
Gavin McLean is a historian with the History Group of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage in Wellington. He has published widely on everything from shipping histories to the story of the New Zealand governor-generalship. This is his third literary anthology, the others being Whare Korero: Best of Reed Writing (2007) and The Penguin Book of New Zealanders at War (2009, co-edited with Ian McGibbon and Kynan Gentry). His most recent book is The White Ships: New Zealand’s First World War Hospital Ships.