New Zealand literature

The New Zealand literature includes short stories, poetry and the theater of New Zealand, which are still written primarily in English, although publications in the language Maori increase more and more. From this perspective, the literary development of New Zealand is described as " bicultural ".

Early Maori literature

The beginnings of the New Zealand literature go back to the narrative tradition of the indigenous Maori who had the country since 900-1000 and then amplified inhabited since the 14th century coming from Polynesia. Stories and myths were handed down by the Maori exclusively oral. In the early 19th century, Christian missionaries began to write these stories. To this end, a way of writing the Polynesian languages ​​has been developed. However, there were in the pre-colonial period, that is, before 1840, no " literature " in the sense in which the term is used in European cultures. It is said that the first written reports of the Maori, which arose around 1815, negotiated by the conquest of the country by the Europeans.

The earliest New Zealand Maori poetry was song ( waiata ). They were collected and published in 1854 by Sir George Grey.

The theater of the Maori is characterized by rituals and performances. The actors did not play a personalized roles. More recently, authors of Maori origin primarily directed against the arbitrariness of " bicultural " approaches, such as the representation of Maori culture in English-speaking parts.

English-language literature

As a result of the economic boom in the 1860s emerged in most places theater in which mainly occurred ensembles who traveled from Australia coming from a stage to the next. However, there were also local theater groups. Credited were mainly comedies; most of the time played pieces have survived only by name. Trips were initially possible only along the coasts. Therefore, the theater flourished when the railroad opened up the interior. This boom was muffled but then again when the movie came up. In the resulting gap met with community theater, which came together in the late 1920s in most cities, partly led by professional directors. Ngaio Marsh founded in 1943 at Canterbury University College is a Shakespeare Company, which existed until 1972. Have become known the New Zealand Players and the Community Arts Service Theatre. An important impulse for the stage went out in the period after the Second World War from the radio and through public funding of theaters.

The English-language poetry reached first on the same subjects that were treated in Victorian poetry. It was partially experimented with New Zealand dialect ( John Barr).

In the period after the First World War, mainly novels have been written in which mainly events from their own colonial history have been processed. Since the 1930s, after gaining independence from Britain within the Commonwealth, a critical view of society begins with the means of literature. A revival of literary production and publishing came from the universities. In 1932, the magazine Phoenix is founded by a group of students in Auckland, which does not last long. In 1938, the New Zealand Listener was founded. 1947 was added in the journal Landfall.

Among the most important children's and youth book authors in New Zealand heard Alice Esther Glen (1881-1940), born in Christchurch, New Zealand. At the age of 11, she won a short story competition the English magazine Little Folks. Among her most successful books include the children 's and youth 's classic Six little New Zealanders (1917 ) and Uncles Three at kamahi ( 1926). In her honor, in 1945 the Esther Glen Award launched New Zealand's oldest and still most prestigious in children's literature.

The centenary of the founding of the state in 1940 is widely seen as an incision of cultural development. While previously most authors from Great Britain has been read, so since then formed the first private national feeling out what this also affected the literature: the authors no longer felt themselves to be exiled Englishman, but as New Zealanders. Only since then also own 'subjects and own stylistic means developed.

In prose, the form of the short story dominated until the 1970s, starting with Frank Sargeson, whose narrative was over a long period of time as "typical New Zealand ".

New Zealand Literature Today

The Maori language has survived to this day and can be learned in some schools. Although publications in Maori have become more frequent, still the focus of the " Maori literature " on writings in English that deal with themes of Maori.

New Zealand will lay claim to have many authors. It will even immigrants who were born abroad, and citizens who have emigrated, with the calculation. An exception is, for example, Samuel Butler, whose utopian novel Erewhon plays in New Zealand and has emerged as a result of a stay in New Zealand; Butler belongs to the English-language literature. Karl Wolfskehl is another exception. His stay in Auckland rather belongs to German literature.

New Zealand writers often relocated to the UK or Australia to escape the geographical and, consequently, artistic isolation of the country.

Well-known New Zealand authors are especially Katherine Mansfield ( The Garden Party and other short stories, 1922) and Keri Hulme, who had for her novel The Bone People ( The Bone People, 1984) in 1985, the Booker Prize, the most important British literary award obtained. As the most important author whose books are written in the Maori language, Witi Ihimaera is true, have combined with those of Patricia Grace since the 1970s to a Maori renaissance whose books.

In the following twenty years, the literature Maori - burly writer has become more diverse. This development must be viewed against the background of a further emancipation of New Zealand from the UK, which have turned away at this time of its former colony more and more. The Maori language was from 1987 also formally recognized by the Maori Language Act as an official language of New Zealand.

New Zealand was in 2012 guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair, under the motto: "Before it gets light with you - While you were sleeping".

Publishing and authors' associations

The New Zealand publishers are organized in the Publishers Association of New Zealand ( PANZ ). The association represents the interests of both small and large publishing houses in the political arena and the rest of the media industry at home and abroad.

The New Zealand Writer's Guild ( NZWG ) is an author association that represents the interests of New Zealand authors from all genres - represents as a union - film, television, theater, radio, new media, and comics.

Librarianship

The libraries have played an important role in the dissemination of literature in New Zealand from the late 19th century. The first Law on Public Libraries ( Public Library Act ) was passed in 1869.

Significant were the library of the University of Auckland, which had been founded in 1884, and the Alexander Turnbull Library from the estate of Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull, who in 1918 was verstoeben. The latter is located since 1966 in the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington, where she will continue to be developed scientifically. The museum collection contains an extraordinary collection of works on John Milton and the Pacific.

The postal service was for the development of librarianship in New Zealand have a crucial importance because in many cases the only way that the books could reach the user.