Ian Middleton

A contemporary New Zealand novelist, Ian Middleton "made a particular mark" with his novels on post-Second World War Japan. Blind, he described this as giving him a "special perspective but 'without limitation'", and has been attributed to the "strong metaphoric colour, sensual - often erotic - quality and lush verbal richness of his writing". He was born in New Plymouth in 1928 and died in Auckland on October 24 2007. He was the brother of noted New Zealand short story writer O. E. Middleton.

A full list of his publications can be found at the University of Auckland's NZ Literature file[1].

Further information can be found at his page at the New Zealand Book Council's website[2].

Main works:

• Pet Shop (Waiura: A. Taylor, 1979)
• Faces of Hachiko (Auckland: Inca Print, 1984)
• Sunflower: a Novel of Present Day Japan (Auckland: Benton Press, 1986)
• Mr Ponsonby (Auckland: Lyndon, 1989)
• Reiko (Wellington: Moana Press, 1990)
• Harvest (Okato: Puniho Art Press, 1995)
• I See a Voice (Auckland: Flamingo, 1997)

The 'Japanese trilogy' - Faces of Hachiko, Sunflower and Reiko - has been described as comprising a personal and complex portrayal of post-war Japan. Pet Shop, a novel on his early upbringing in small-town New Zealand, wartime Auckland and his experiences on a Norwegian tanker, was described by New Zealand writer Kevin Ireland as "an absorbing picture of the repressions that passed for a moral code".