Dan Davin

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Daniel "Dan" Marcus Davin CBE (born September 1, 1913 in Invercargill , Southland , South Island , New Zealand ; † October 28, 1990 in Oxford , England ) was a New Zealand author of novels and short stories , who was also an editor and literary critic .

Life

Origin, childhood and school attendance

Davin was the second son and fourth child of railroad worker Patrick Davin and his wife Mary Magdalene Sullivan, both of whom were descended from the working class of Irish Catholic immigrants. As a result, he grew up in a culture of love for language, storytelling, and music, which was simultaneously influenced by religious beliefs, family life, and belief in hard work, as well as an affection for drinks, humor, and socializing. A year after his birth, the family moved to Gore in 1914 , where his father had been transferred to work for New Zealand Railways (NZRC) before they returned to Invercargill in 1920. There he attended the Marist Brothers' School and read countless books in the public library as well as the library of the railway workers. In addition, he was interested in the father's garden with its plants, animals and working with the freedom of fields and bushes and going out with his dog. These childhood experiences later became part of his best short stories.

Because of his great intelligence, Davin received a place at Sacred Heart College in Aickland in 1930 , where he was a classmate of other talented boys such as Michael Kennedy Joseph and received an in-depth knowledge of literature from one of his teachers. However, he suffered from homesickness for Southland with its freedom from its fields and expanses, the nostalgia of which played a noticeable part in his literary and emotional life, and the suppression of awakening youthful desires became a torment for him. To suppress this, he began to work , and after attending Sacred Heart College for just a year , he won a national scholarship in 1931 that enabled him to study at the University of Otago .

Study and marriage to Winnie Gonley

At the University of Otago, Davin began studying Classical Philology , English , French and History, and taught himself German . During his studies he fell in love with Winifred Kathleen Joan Gonley , who was four years his senior and who encouraged his studies. On the other hand, he led a dissolute life as a fighter in pubs and became a slightly dangerous man: arrogant, moody, impetuous and difficult as well as rebellious against family, religion and society. Nonetheless, he was also loving, funny, generous, and loyal. In 1934 he completed his studies in English with high honors with a Bachelor of Arts (BA). Although he was suspended in part because of an inferior scandal and defamation, he won a Rhodes scholarship and completed his postgraduate studies in Latin in 1935, also with first-class honors, with a Master of Arts (MA). The previous unauthorized suspension has been lifted.

With the help of the scholarship Davin finally began another degree in the October 1936 Greek at Balliol College of Oxford University . It was there that his ambitions as a writer crystallized and he began work on his first novel and published some of his best poems in New Zealand . He also met the historian Gordon A. Craig , with whom he had a lifelong friendship, and made several trips to Paris . In the summer of 1937, Winnie Gonley followed him to Europe and they traveled together to France , Italy , Germany and Ireland . The two married in Oxford on July 22, 1939 , shortly after he had again graduated with honors. The marriage produced three daughters.

Second World War and the beginning of his writing career

When the Second World War broke out , Davin joined the British Army and became a member of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment . After basic training in Aldershot , he was transferred to the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) and began his service as a sub-lieutenant in the 23rd Battalion in Mytchett , Surrey Heath on July 20, 1940. He subsequently took part in combat missions in the Mediterranean , first in the spring of 1941, where he was involved in missions on Mount Olympus and then in the airborne battle for Crete in May 1941, in which he was wounded and evacuated to Egypt .

After surgery and recovery, Davin was seconded as an intelligence officer to the Eighth Army headquarters in Cairo , where he made some of his closest friends, including fellow countrymen Desmond Patrick "Paddy" Costello and Geoffrey Cox . At that time he was in love with Elizabeth Berndt, a stateless person of Danish- German descent, who gave birth to a daughter who was later taken into their family by him and his wife. After further posts in the intelligence service during the second Battle of El Alamein in October and November 1942 and the Battle of Monte Cassino from January to May 1944, he spent the last year of the war with the British Control Commission for Germany in London, where he reunited with his growing family was. For his military merit and bravery he was mentioned three times in the war report (Mentioned in Despatches) and a member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

Post-war period and literary processing of the war experiences

Towards the end of the war, Winnie Davin had found an English publisher for Davin's first novel, Cliffs of Fall (1945), a dark tale of his passion for Dunedin . This novel and a series of short stories in magazines made him a character in Fitzrovia, the center of London bohemianism . In this context, thanks to his relationships with literary magazines and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), he made friends with a number of writers, artists and other personalities who sought attention in the pubs and cafes of literary London.

Shortly after the end of the war, Davin retired as a major from active military service. His experiences there formed the basis for his novel For the Rest of our Lives (1947). At the same time, he wrote many of the stories that made up his first collection of short stories, also published in 1947 under the title The Gorse blooms pale . He then worked for the publishing house Oxford University Press (OUP), to which he came through his compatriot Kenneth Sisam . For the next 33 years his works also appeared on OUP, particularly because of his work as an academic writer and as a leading figure in international academic publications. In the eleven years after 1947 he published four novels, a volume of short stories and an introduction to English literature begun by John Mulgan .

The novel Roads from Home (1949), a conjuring up of provincial Catholic life in Southland, is widely considered Darvin's best great fictional work and was reissued in paperback in 1976 . Some of the short stories such as the Connolly sequence, The General and the Nightingale, and In Transit in particular are standout. At the time he also edited two collections of New Zealand short stories and contributed countless articles to journals, magazines, writings and the BBC's radio program. In addition, the brilliant volume Crete (1953) appeared from the New Zealand Official War History Series. In his novel The sullen Bell (1956) he described the world of the New Zealanders in the London district of Fitzrovia, where he lived after the war.

At their house at 103 Southmoor Road, Roxford, Davin and his family received visits from close friends such as Enid Starkie and Joyce Cary, as well as many New Zealand writers and scholars who traveled to England. Here, and later in their cottage in Dorchester-on-Thames , they received countless other visitors who shared his taste for pubs, literature, scholarship and gossip. As the demands at OUP grew and his age slowed down, his literary output declined. He continued writing short stories, many of which appeared in the literary magazine Landfall founded by Charles Brasch in 1947 . He also wrote numerous literary reviews for The Times Literary Supplement , introducing a wider international audience to New Zealand literature.

Late literary work, awards and death

In the late 1960s, he began collecting Memoirs of Friends, entitled Closing Times in 1975, which is perhaps his best book, albeit the only one that is not directly related to New Zealand.

Since the late 1950s he wrote three other novels, No Remittance (1959), Not here, not now (1970) and Brides of Price (1972), as well as a second collection of short stories, which appeared in 1975 under the title Breathing Spaces . He was also a steadfast author of literary criticism that combined understanding and analysis with great modesty, as best seen in his 1976 treatise on Anthony Powell's twelve-volume novel series A dance to the music of time . He admired this work and reading it is a key to his own feelings.

In 1978 Davin left his position at Oxford University Press to devote more time to writing. However, he was largely prevented from doing so because of his state of health and his fondness for sociability, which also drove back his literary ambitions. However, he was in demand as an expert on the Second World War and as a reader of the manuscripts of a new generation of young, largely New Zealand authors. He described himself as an "intimate stranger" ("intimate stranger") in his native country, but remained a loyal New Zealander until the end of his life.

In 1984 the University of Otago awarded him an honorary doctorate and in 1987 he was also appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He died on October 28, 1990 in Oxford with his wife and their three daughters. He bequeathed his collection of New Zealand books to the University of Exeter and his other writings to the Alexander Turnbull Library of the National Library of New Zealand .

It was in honor Literature Prize Dan Davin Literary Award and the Dan Davin Literary Foundation donated.

Publications

  • Cliffs of fall , 1945
  • The gorse blooms pale , 1947
  • English Short Stories of Today , 1958
  • No Remittance , 1959
  • For the rest of our lives , 1965
  • Not here, not now , 1970
  • Brides of price , 1972
  • Breathing spaces , 1975
  • Snow upon fire: A dance to the music of time: Anthony Powell , 1976
  • Short Stories from the Second World War , 1984
  • The Killing Bottle , 1988

Background literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rhodes Scholar 1936 Dan Davin
personal data
SURNAME Davin, Dan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Davin, Daniel Marcus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION New Zealand writer, editor
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Invercargill , Southland , South Island , New Zealand
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1990
Place of death Oxford , England