Lydia Wevers Knihy

This pioneering examination of travel writing about New Zealand in the colonial period discusses a wide range of writing that helped place New Zealand on the literary map, while providing an oblique history of the young nation in the 19th century. Exploring early newspaper accounts; the journals of missionaries, traders, and adventurers; and the guidebooks and specialized descriptions of fishing, and hunting, which promoted New Zealand as a sporting paradise, Wevers finds that writing about New Zealand was an essential tool in the colonization process.

In the last two decades there has been a marked increase in the quality and quantity of short fiction published by New Zealand women. This anthology, a celebration of the excellence of their work, includes stories by Janet Frame, Keri Hulme, Fiona Kidman, Patricia Grace, Margaret Sutherland,Joy Cowley, Jean Watson, and others. The collection not only conveys a sense of excitement in these women's artistic production, but also encourages other women who are just beginning to find what they want to say.