“There was no particular version of New Zealand I wished to construct or dismantle, which was just as well: we may get glimpses of a society through its short fiction, but few short stories set out to give us a panoramic social overview, and fiction writers are not government workers, commissioned with compiling accurate, fact-finding reports.”
This 31-story collection, a snapshot of New Zealand fiction in the early twenty-first century, includes significant work from some of the country’s foremost fiction writers – including C. K. Stead, Patricia Grace, Fiona Kidman, Witi Ihimaera, Damien Wilkins, Owen Marshall, Vincent O’Sullivan, Fiona Farrell, Charlotte Grimshaw and Emily Perkins – alongside exciting work by a strong group of new, younger rising literary stars, such as Anna Taylor, Eleanor Catton, Carl Nixon, Julian Novitz and Alice Tawhai.
Reviews
“A remarkable collection of remarkable work.”
– New Zealand Listener
“Paula Morris was an inspired choice by Penguin to edit the first book to carry this title in 20 years … her very thoughtful, considered, frank, entertaining and occasionally provocative introduction alone is worth the cost of the book. This is a major piece of New Zealand literary publishing and should be on the bookshelf of every serious NZ fiction reader.”
– Graham Beattie, Beattie’s Book Blog