Book Chat joins literary festival

The Literary Lunch was once a much-vaunted tradition for publishers and authors, now long gone. This year the Whanganui Literary Festival Trust has reinvented the tradition by offering a Book Chat over lunch at the legendary 25 Somme, home to Robin Hyde when she lived in Whanganui.

Born in Cape Town, and brought to Wellington as a baby, Robin Hyde became one of New Zealand’s most significant writers of poetry, fiction and journalism. She was the first New Zealander to be included in Macmillans’ Contemporary Poets series.

Robin worked as a “lady editor” at the Wanganui Chronicle. She moved into an upstairs room at 25 Somme Parade with a view of the river from the house, which was about 10 minutes’ walk from the newspaper’s office. The house, originally called Bathwick, had been established as a boys’ boarding school in 1902 and, as the authors of the book Disputed Ground: Robin Hyde, Journalist report, “Hyde frequently encountered men who suggested knowingly that she was sleeping in their bedroom.”

Robin was a talented writer and ahead of her time in many ways. She was the first woman journalist to travel to the ChinaJapan war front in the 1930s and witnessed horrors of which she had only vicarious kowledge when writing Passport to Hell . It is the story of New Zealand soldier James Douglas Stark — Starkie — whom she met when reporting at Mt Eden prison.

“Robin Hyde was one of New Zealand’s true literary trailblazers, and in this book she redefined the parameters of novel and memoir. In its psychological acuity and emotional depth, Passport to Hell is one of the finest war books we have,” writes DIB Smith in the introduction to the book. The author of 10 books of prose and poetry, Robin Hyde’s originality is only slowly being recognised. In 1929 she published her first book of poetry, The Desolate Star.

Between 1935 and 1938 she published five novels: Passport to Hell (1936), Check To Your King

(1936), Wednesday’s Children

(1937), Nor the Years Condemn

(1938), and The Godwits Fly

(1938).

Everyone and every literary genre welcome. Come and chat about your favourite books and authors over lunch from midday onwards.

Members of the Whanganui Literary Festival Trust (WLFT) at 25 Somme cafe, former home to author Robin Hyde. From left: Mary-Ann Ewing, WLFT chairwoman Jenn Falconer, Heather Johnson and Lisa Maskery.