Hyde: ‘A feminist and a fighter’
Be for once a white boat adrift, in debt to no lighthouse, were words Robin Hyde once wrote.
The journalist, novelist and poet, born in 1906 in Cape Town as Iris Wilkinson, is considered one of New Zealand’s finest writers of the era between the world wars, having moved to Wellington before her first birthday.
Known for The godwits fly, Passport to hell and Nor the years condemn, Hyde has recently been honoured with her personal and literary papers being registered as items of national significance with Unesco’s Memory of the World programme. Only 45 items are on New Zealand’s register, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Women’s Suffrage Petition and the Crown Purchase Deeds.
But while Hyde was often considered part of Aotearoa’s ‘‘big three’’ women authors of the 20th century – alongside Katherine Mansfield and Janet Frame – she had a much lesser-known profile, said Sean McMahon, assistant manuscripts curator at the National Library.
A graduate of Wellington Girls’ College, Hyde was plagued for much of her life by a knee injury she suffered when she was 18, which later resulted in her leg becoming tubercular.
Initially writing poetry for the school’s magazine, Hyde went on to become a journalist in 1925 for the capital’s Dominion newspaper, mostly writing for its women’s section.
While in Rotorua for knee treatment in 1926, Hyde had a love affair with Frederick de Mulford and fell pregnant. However their son, Christopher Robin Hyde, was stillborn, hence his mother adopting his name in his memory.
De Mulford paid for her to give birth in Australia, and on her return to New Zealand she discovered he had married another woman.
Hyde was hospitalised due to the trauma of her stillbirth, but during her recovery period began writing again, mainly poetry and social columns in newspapers, the latter of which were some of the only ways women journalists could get published. She later had a son, Derek, whose father (who was also married to another woman) only provided occasional maintenance payments.
Between 1929 and 1938, Hyde published several novels and poetry books. But during this time she also attempted to commit suicide, and spent periods as a voluntary patient at an Auckland psychiatric facility.
In 1938, Hyde travelled as a war correspondent to the occupied frontline in eastern China, where she was beaten by Japanese soldiers and again fell ill. Later, having been handed over to British authorities, Hyde was living in poverty in an attic in London when World War II loomed.
Despite arrangements made to expatriate her back to New Zealand, authorities found her dead by suicide. She was 33.
McMahon said despite Hyde’s troubled and tragic life, she was a crusader for truth, an advocate for society’s marginalised, and a fine writer. ‘‘When she died, it took a long time before she was recognised . . . she had an amazing output: 10 publications in 10 years, and inside that, five novels in four years.’’
Hyde managed this through a drug addiction and being a single mother. The big difference between her and Frame or Mansfield, McMahon said, was the fact that Hyde was a journalist. As well as the Dominion, Hyde worked for New Zealand Truth and was ‘‘lady editor’’ of New Zealand Observer.
‘‘She was working in a man’s world, politically active, had connections in the Labour Party, was learning te reo and taking interest in issues, which people are now tackling as part of the modern fabric of New Zealand,’’ McMahon said. ‘‘She was ahead of her time.’’
Since the 1990s, there had been increased academic interest in her work, McMahon said. Derek Challis, Hyde’s son, died aged 90 in January this year. He published an autobiography about his mother, The Book of Iris, in 2002.
While some of her papers are held at the University of Auckland, most are stored at the Alexander Turnbull Library.
‘‘She was a user of words, a maker of words and above all, a fighter with words. She was both a feminist and a fighter.’’