Ian Middleton
A contemporary New Zealand novelist, Ian Middleton "made a particular mark"[1] 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".[2] 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"[3].
References
- ^ http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/middletonian.html
- ^ The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, edited by Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998)
- ^ The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, edited by Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998)
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