Maurice Duggan

Maurice Noel Duggan (born November 25, 1922 in Auckland , † December 11, 1974 in Takapuna , North Shore City , Auckland region , North Island , New Zealand ) was a New Zealand writer and copywriter who, along with Katherine Mansfield and Frank Sargeson, was one of the greatest authors of One of New Zealand's short stories and literary stylists was one. He received the prestigious Esther Glen Award in 1959 and was the second holder of the Robert Burns Fellowship in 1960 , which is regarded as New Zealand's most important fellowship in the field of literature.

Life

Origin, childhood and amputation of the left foot

Duggan was the son of Robert Harbron Duggan, who emigrated from Ireland to New Zealand after the death of his first wife and later became a manager at George Court and Sons Limited , a large department store in Auckland. After immigration, Robert Duggan was the second wife of Maurice Duggan's mother, Mary Ellen Condon, a New Zealand-born woman who was also of Irish descent. In addition to him, three sisters and an older half-brother from the father's first marriage resulted from the marriage. When Mary Duggan suddenly died of a heart defect in May 1930 , Robert Duggan married for the third time less than 18 months later, creating tension in the family that was later processed by Duggan. In 1935 Robert Duggan left George Court and Sons Limited and moved with his family to Paeroa , where he opened his own business.

In 1936 Maurice Duggan returned to Auckland to attend the local Sacred Heart College . Unhappy with the school environment and the Catholic faith he grew up in, he stayed there for less than nine months before returning to Paeroa. He worked in various jobs, including when he returned to Auckland in 1938.

In 1940, at the age of 18, Duggan contracted acute osteomyelitis in his left foot, which eventually had to be amputated during a hospital stay . The loss was devastating. During the long recuperation that followed, as well as the lonely years of World War II , he began his interest in reading and then in writing as a way of expressing his pent-up feelings.

Supported by Frank Sargeson and development of his writing style

He met Frank Sargeson in Takapuna in February 1944 , and this older, already recognized writer quickly became his literary mentor. Sargeson introduced Duggan to other emerging Auckland writers such as Greville Texidor and John Reece Cole . After the end of the Second World War, young writers like Keith Sinclair and Kendrick Smithyman also returned to New Zealand. These Auckland writers became Duggan's lifelong friends. At a literary meeting at Texidor's house, Duggan met Barbara Mary Platts, a physiotherapist at Auckland Hospital . The two married on February 11, 1946 at St Peter's Church in Takapuna and a year later they moved into a house in Forrest Hill, one of the northern suburbs of Auckland, and lived there until his death.

From the beginning, Duggan Sargeson's New Zealand slang early style rejected and, with the encouragement of his mentor, displayed an intricacy and impatience with conventional forms that became characteristics of his works. His early stories were weakened by what he himself later described as a “habit of rhetoric”. Soon, however, his work showed an elegance and sophistication that contrasted with the socially realistic New Zealand literature, and he developed an attention to language that was more lyrical than prosaic . Six place names and a girl , a series of short, impressive paragraphs describing areas in the Hauraki Plains and the feelings of a runaway boy, proved a technical breakthrough and appeared in the literary magazine Landfall founded by Charles Brasch in 1947 , as did much of his later work.

European trip, tuberculosis disease and literary awards

In 1950 Maurice Duggan traveled to England with his wife and made trips to Italy and Spain . During his time in London , he wrote many of the short stories that ultimately became part of his first collection of short stories, Immanuel's Land . During another stay in Spain he fell ill with tuberculosis in late 1952 and had to rush back to New Zealand. He recovered from this but relapsed in Auckland and had to recover repeatedly over the next ten years. In 1954 his only child, a son, was born.

In the meantime he continued his literary work and the publication of Immanuel's Land in 1956 established its importance for the New Zealand literary scene, especially after he received the Hubert Church Memorial Award for Prose in 1957 and the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award in 1958 . Duggan also wrote the children's book Falter Tom and the water boy , which has also been successfully published in Great Britain and the USA and received the Esther Glen Award in 1959 , the most prestigious literary prize for New Zealand children's and youth literature.

Robert Burns Fellowship and work as a copywriter

In 1960 Duggan became the second holder of the Robert Burns Fellowship of the University of Otago , after Ian Cross , which is regarded as New Zealand's most important fellowship in the field of literature. During his year in Dunedin he worked on a novel but never finished it. He also wrote Riley's handbook and many of the short stories in his next anthology, Summer in the gravel pit , which appeared in 1965 with great acclaim in Great Britain and New Zealand. "Along Rideout Road That Summer", which appeared in 1963, became one of the most famous short stories.

After his return to Auckland in 1961, he took up a job as a copywriter for the advertising agency Carlton-Carruthers du Chateau , which tied him strongly in terms of time and content. In 1965 he became chief copywriter at J. Inglis Wright Advertising , but was exempted in 1966 after he was awarded the Scholarship in Letters . During that year he completed the stories that were eventually published in his final collection of short stories, O'Leary's orchard in 1970. At the end of 1966 he returned to J. Inglis Wright Advertising and took on the role of Creative Director .

Alcoholism, cancer and death

For the remainder of the 1960s, Duggan devoted all of his energy to advertising. At the same time, he increasingly fell into alcoholism and withdrew almost completely outside of his professional life. In October 1971 he became a member of the board of directors of J. Inglis Wright Advertising , but had to leave the company 14 months later in December 1972 after his alcoholism got out of hand. He spent much of 1973 in often nightmarish circumstances at Oakley Hospital in Auckland before overcoming alcohol addiction in August 1973 and returning to his family.

Ultimately, however, he was diagnosed with cancer a few months in late 1973 . He dedicated the last year of his life to writing and the fight against this new disease. He completed his last short story "The Magsman Miscellany", which was only published posthumously. He died on December 11, 1974 in Lister Hospital in Takapuna.

Publications

• Immanuel's Land , 1956
• Falter Tom and the water boy , 1958
• Summer in the gravel pit , 1965
• O'Leary's orchard , 1970
• The Fabulous McFanes and Other Children's Stories , 1974

Background literature

• R. Dudding (Editor): Beginnings , Wellington, 1980
• I. Richards: To bed at noon , Auckland, 1997

Web links

• Ian Richards: Duggan, Maurice Noel , in: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , Update June 7, 2013, accessed March 26, 2015
• Biography in New Zealand Book Council
• Entry in storylines
• Biography in Encyclopedia of Literature
• Bibliography in the Open Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Robert Burns Fellowship on the homepage of the University of Otago
2. ^ "Along Rideout Road That Summer" , in: Reference Guide to Short Fiction