Alan Duff | |
|---|---|
 Duff in 2019 | |
| Born | 26 October 1950 Rotorua, New Zealand |
| Occupation | Author |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Notable works | |
Alan Duff MBE (born 26 October 1950) is a New Zealand novelist and newspaper columnist. He is best known as the author of the novel Once Were Warriors (1990), which was made into a film of the same name in 1994.
Alan Duff was born in Rotorua, New Zealand, the son of forestry scientist Gowan Duff (1910–1995), known as Pat, and Hinau Josephine Duff (née Raimona), known as Kuia, of Ngāti Rangitihi and Ngāti Tūwharetoa descent, and grandson of writer Oliver Duff (1883–1967). He was born and raised in a State housing area in Rotorua. Oliver Duff was a writer and foundation editor of the New Zealand Listener , [1] and Duff inherited his grandfather's love of literature. [2]
Duff's parents separated when he was 10, and Duff moved in with a Māori uncle and aunt at Whakarewarewa. He wrote at some length about his troubled childhood in his 1999 memoir, Out of the Mist and the Steam. [3] [4] Many of these experiences informed his novel Once Were Warriors.
Duff was expelled from his school Rotorua Boys' High School and ran away from home, ending up as a State ward at Hamilton Boys' Home. Later he lived with another uncle, anthropologist Roger Duff, and went back to school at Christchurch Boys' High School. At 15 he was sentenced to a term in Waikeria Borstal for assault and breaking and entering.
After leaving school, Duff worked as an installer of sheet metal insulation and sang in a band. He had a partner, with whom he had two children. [3]
In the late 1970s, Duff lived in England. He worked as an installer of sheet metal insulation, then as a barman and bar manager. However, he then again migrated to a criminal life, and in 1979 was sentenced to 19 months in jail. While in England, Duff had a partner, Paula, and daughter, Katea. [3]
Duff began writing full-time in 1985 and had Once Were Warriors published in 1990.
Duff began to write full-time in 1985. He tried writing a thriller as his first novel, but it was rejected. He burned the manuscript and started writing Once Were Warriors (1990), which had an immediate and great impact. The novel is written in juxtaposed interior monologues, making its style stand out from other works. It was winner of the PEN Best First Book Award, was runner-up in the Goodman Fielder Wattie Award, and was made into the award-winning film of the same name in 1994.
One Night Out Stealing, appeared in 1991 and was shortlisted in the 1992 Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards.
Duff was awarded the Frank Sargeson Fellowship in 1991, and began writing a weekly—later bi-weekly – column for The Evening Post , syndicated to eight other newspapers. In this, and in his 1993 analysis, Māori: The Crisis and the Challenge, he has developed his ideas on the failures of Māoridom, castigating both the traditional leadership and the radical movement for dwelling on the injustices of the past and expecting others to resolve them, instead of encouraging Māori to get on and help themselves. The blame for Māori underperformance he puts squarely back on Māori, for not making the most of the opportunities given them.[ citation needed ]
State Ward started as a series of episodes on radio in 1993 and was published as a novella in 1994.
The Duffy Books in Homes scheme, co-founded in 1995 by Duff and Christine Fernyhough, with commercial sponsorship and government support, aims to alleviate poverty and illiteracy by providing low-cost books to underprivileged children, thus encouraging them to read. In its first year alone it put about 180,000 new books in the hands of about 38,000 children. By 2008, the scheme delivered 5 million books to schools around New Zealand. [5]
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (1996), the sequel to Once Were Warriors, was the winner of the fiction section of the 1997 Montana Book Awards and was also made into a film What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? in 1999. Two Sides of the Moon was published in 1998. Duff wrote his own memoir, Out of the Mist and the Steam, in 1999. His first novel to be set outside of New Zealand is Szabad (2001). Inspired by the stories of people Duff met during his several trips to Hungary, the story takes place in Budapest during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Jake's Long Shadow (2002) is the third volume in Duff's Once Were Warriors trilogy. In 2003 Once Were Warriors was brought to the stage across New Zealand as a musical drama.
Duff regularly writes for the New Zealand Herald . [6]
In September 2007, he was arrested while speeding near Taupō. On 30 March 2008, he appeared in the Taupō District Court at a defended hearing and was represented by prominent barrister Antony Shaw. Duff pled not guilty to failing to remain at a scene after being stopped, failing to stop for police and two charges of resisting police. He was also allegedly abusive and uncooperative. During the alleged incident, he was stopped and then took off. After a pursuit, he allegedly swung a policewoman around by the handcuffs as she was attempting to restrain him. [12] The charges were later dismissed by the Taupō District Court, Judge McGuire saying: "the result however, is that I am left uneasy over whether police prosecutorial power was used wisely and fairly in this instance...". [13] However a high court judge subsequently ruled that the judge erred and police could detain a driver while carrying out checks, although he did not require that the charges be relaid. [14]
In the 1995 New Year Honours, Duff was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to literature. [15]
On 16 June 2011, Duff declared himself bankrupt, owing creditors NZ$3.6 million. [16] As of March 2013, he was living in France and visiting New Zealand several times a year. [17]
Rotorua is a city in the Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand's North Island. It is sited on the southern shores of Lake Rotorua, from which it takes its name. It is the seat of the Rotorua Lakes District, a territorial authority encompassing Rotorua and several other nearby towns. It has an estimated resident population of 58,900, making it the country's 13th largest urban area, and the Bay of Plenty's second-largest urban area behind Tauranga.
Witi Tame Ihimaera-Smiler is a New Zealand author. Raised in the small town of Waituhi, he decided to become a writer as a teenager after being convinced that Māori people were ignored or mischaracterised in literature. He was the first Māori writer to publish a collection of short stories, with Pounamu, Pounamu (1972), and the first to publish a novel, with Tangi (1973). After his early works, he took a ten-year break from writing, during which he focused on editing an anthology of Māori writing in English.
Once Were Warriors is New Zealand author Alan Duff's bestselling first novel, published in 1990. It tells the story of an urban Māori family, the Hekes, and portrays the reality of domestic violence in New Zealand. It was the basis of a 1994 film of the same title, directed by Lee Tamahori and starring Rena Owen and Temuera Morrison, which made its U.S. premiere at the Hawaii International Film Festival. The novel was followed by two sequels, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (1996) and Jake's Long Shadow (2002).
Temuera Derek Morrison is a New Zealand actor who first gained recognition in his home country for playing Dr. Hone Ropata on the soap opera Shortland Street. He garnered critical acclaim for his starring role as Jake "The Muss" Heke in the 1994 film Once Were Warriors and its 1999 sequel What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?
Putauaki is a dacite volcanic cone in the Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand. Located 50 km (31 mi) east of Rotorua and three kilometres east of Kawerau, it is the easternmost vent of the Taupo Volcanic Zone adjacent to the Ōkataina volcanic centre. The mountain rises to 821 m (2,694 ft) above sea level, and is visible from the waters of the Bay of Plenty, 30 km (19 mi) to the north. A King of the Mountain race was run on Putauaki as part of the international King of the Mountain series between 1955 and 2020, and proceeds were donated to charity.
Ngāi Tūhoe, often known simply as Tūhoe, is a Māori iwi of New Zealand. It takes its name from an ancestral figure, Tūhoe-pōtiki. Tūhoe is a Māori-language word meaning 'steep' or 'high noon'. Tūhoe people also bear the sobriquet Nga Tamariki o te Kohu. Tūhoe traditional land is at Te Urewera in the eastern North Island, a steep, heavily forested area which includes Lake Waikaremoana. Tūhoe traditionally relied on the forest for their needs. The tribe had its main centres of population in the small mountain valleys of Ahikereru and Ruatāhuna, with Maungapohatu, the inner sanctum of the Urewera, as their sacred mountain. The Tūhoe country had a great reputation among the neighbouring tribes as a graveyard for invading forces.
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? is a 1999 New Zealand drama film directed by Ian Mune and starring Temuera Morrison as an abusive Māori husband, Jake "the Muss" Heke. The film is based on Alan Duff's novel What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (1996), the sequel to Once Were Warriors (1990), which was made into the film Once Were Warriors (1994).
Chris Else is the New Zealand author of novels, collections of short stories, and poems.
There have been a number of proposals to build a Taupō Line as a branch railway linking the township of Taupō in the central North Island of New Zealand to New Zealand's rail network. One proposal proceeded as far as the construction stage before being stopped.
Once Were Warriors is a 1994 New Zealand tragic drama film based on New Zealand author Alan Duff's bestselling 1990 first novel. The film tells the story of the Heke family, an urban Māori whānau living in South Auckland, and their problems with poverty, alcoholism, and domestic violence, mostly brought on by the patriarch, Jake. It explores the detrimental effects of the colonisation of New Zealand suffered by Māori, and the survival of Māori culture against all odds.
Rotorua Boys' High School (RBHS) is a state school educating boys from Year 9 to Year 13. It is situated just outside the Rotorua CBD at the intersection of Old Taupo Road and Pukuatua Street in Rotorua, New Zealand. The school is governed by an elected School Board, of which the Principal is ex officio a member under guidelines laid down by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. With Māori enrolment exceeding 75% of the school’s intake, the largest per capita in New Zealand, RBHS has been a longstanding recipient of funding from its Ngāti Whakaue endowment that assisted the construction of the school’s 104-bed hostel, and the purchase of a computer laboratory. RBHS is noted for its performance in sport, with 4 Olympians among its notable alumni, and for having won the Prime Minister of New Zealand Supreme Award for Excellence in Education and the Excellence in Leading Award, making it the top school in the country for 2019. Its current principal, Chris Grinter, is the longest serving in the school's history, and in 2022, he received a New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education and Māori.
Rotorua is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It was first established in 1919, and has existed continuously since 1954. The current MP for Rotorua is Todd McClay of the National Party, who won the electorate in the 2008 general election from incumbent Labour MP Steve Chadwick.
Waihi Village, also known as Little Waihi, is a small Māori community of around 25 households on the southwestern shores of Lake Taupō seven kilometres northwest of Tūrangi, New Zealand. It has been the site of three major landslides, in 1910, 1846 and around 1780, which killed over 200 people in total. The landslides flowed down the Waimatai Stream from their source above the village in the Hipaua Steaming Cliffs geothermal area.
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? is a 1996 novel by Alan Duff. It is the sequel to Duff's novel Once Were Warriors (1990), which was made into a film in 1994.
The Kinleith Branch railway line is located in the Waikato region of New Zealand. The line was constructed by the Thames Valley and Rotorua Railway Company, Taupo Totara Timber Company and rebuilt by the Public Works Department primarily to serve the Kinleith Mill in 1952. It is 65 kilometres (40 mi) in length.
Tikitere, also known as "Hell's Gate", is a suburb in Rotorua's most active geothermal area on State Highway 30, between Lake Rotorua and Lake Rotoiti in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. It includes many geothermal features such as steaming lakes, mudpools, fumaroles, a mud volcano and the Kakahi Falls, the largest hot waterfall in the southern hemisphere.
Roger Shepherd Duff was a New Zealand ethnologist and museum director.
Antony "Tony" Shaw is a barrister of the High Court of New Zealand, and a former lecturer of law at Victoria University. He holds an LLB & BA from Auckland University; his practice covers civil and criminal matters. He is regarded as an expert on Human Rights Law. Shaw has appeared widely in the District and High Courts of New Zealand including successful appeals to the Court of Appeal, Privy Council and the New Zealand Supreme Court. Shaw has also appeared in the Employment Court of New Zealand and regularly appears before the New Zealand Parole Board.
Hayze Perham is a New Zealand professional rugby league footballer who plays as a fullback for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in the National Rugby League (NRL).
Fordlands is a western suburb of Rotorua in the Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand's North Island.
1883–1967
Gowan Duff
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