David Ballantyne

David Watt Ballantyne ( born June 14, 1924 in Auckland, † February 24, 1986 in Auckland City ) was a New Zealand writer and journalist.

Life

David Ballantyne is one of New Zealand's most famous writers. As a child he lived in the port city of Hicks Bay, Rotorua and later in Gisborne, where he continued his schooling broke off after the death of his father at age 15.

After a brief episode in the military and a broken medical studies, he began his career as a journalist at the Auckland Star. In 1948 he published his first novel, The Cunninghams in the United States. He married in 1950 the painter Jean Vivienne Margaret Heise, with whom he had a son. In 1954 he moved with his family to London, where he continued working as a journalist and author. In 1966 the family returned to New Zealand. Ballantyne died at his home in Ponsonby, Auckland City in 1986.

He has published eight novels, of which only his fifth, Sydney Bridge Upside Down, was published, 44 years after it was first published in German.

Works

• The Cunninghams, 1948
• The last pioneer, 1963
• A friend of the family, 1966
• Sydney Bridge Upside Down, 1968 German: Sydney Bridge Upside Down. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-455-40372-5