Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic book series The Sandman and the novels Good Omens, Stardust, Anansi Boys, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He co-created the TV series adaptations of Good Omens and The Sandman.
The Piano is a 1993 historical drama film written and directed by New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion. It stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin in her first major acting role. The film focuses on a mute Scottish woman who travels to a remote part of New Zealand with her young daughter after her arranged marriage to a settler. The plot has similarities to Jane Mander's 1920 novel, The Story of a New Zealand River, but also substantial differences. Campion has cited the novels Wuthering Heights and The African Queen as inspirations.
New Zealand literature is literature, both oral and written, produced by the people of New Zealand. It often deals with New Zealand themes, people or places, is written predominantly in New Zealand English, and features Māori culture and the use of the Māori language. Before the arrival and settlement of Europeans in New Zealand in the 19th century, Māori culture had a strong oral tradition. Early European settlers wrote about their experiences travelling and exploring New Zealand. The concept of a "New Zealand literature", as distinct from English literature, did not originate until the 20th century, when authors began exploring themes of landscape, isolation, and the emerging New Zealand national identity. Māori writers became more prominent in the latter half of the 20th century, and Māori language and culture have become an increasingly important part of New Zealand literature.
Janet Paterson Frame was a New Zealand author. She is internationally renowned for her work, which includes novels, short stories, poetry, juvenile fiction, and an autobiography, and received numerous awards including being appointed to the Order of New Zealand, New Zealand's highest civil honour.
Frank Sargeson was a New Zealand short story writer and novelist. Born in Hamilton, Sargeson had a middle-class and puritanical upbringing, and initially worked as a lawyer. After travelling to the United Kingdom for two years and working as a clerk on his return, he was convicted of indecent assault for a homosexual encounter and moved to live on his uncle's farm for a period. Having already written and published some short stories in the late 1920s, he began to focus on his writing and moved into his parents' holiday cottage where he would live for the rest of his life.
Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion is a New Zealand filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the critically acclaimed films The Piano (1993) and The Power of the Dog (2021), for which she has received two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Campion was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DNZM) in the 2016 New Year Honours, for services to film.
An Angel at My Table is a 1990 biographical drama film directed by Jane Campion. The film is based on Janet Frame's three autobiographies, To the Is-Land (1982), An Angel at My Table (1984), and The Envoy from Mirror City (1984). The film was very well received. It won awards at the New Zealand Film and Television awards, the Toronto International Film Festival, and second prize at the Venice Film Festival.
Catherine Chidgey is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer and university lecturer. She has published eight novels. Her honours include the inaugural Prize in Modern Letters; the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton, France; Best First Book at both the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize ; the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards on two occasions; and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize.
Kerry Lauren Fox is a New Zealand actress. She came to prominence playing author Janet Frame in the movie An Angel at My Table directed by Jane Campion, which gained her a Best Actress Award from the New Zealand Film and Television Awards.
Anna Maxwell Martin, sometimes credited as Anna Maxwell-Martin, is a British actress. She won two British Academy Television Awards, for her portrayals of Esther Summerson in the BBC adaptation of Bleak House (2005) and N in the Channel 4 adaptation of Poppy Shakespeare (2008). She is also known for her roles as DCS Patricia Carmichael in BBC One crime drama Line of Duty (2019–2021) and Kelly Major in Code 404 (2020–2022). From 2016-2022, Martin starred in the BBC comedy Motherland, for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Female Comedy Performance.
Laura Jones is an Australian screenwriter.
Read NZ Te Pou Muramura is a not-for-profit organisation that presents a wide range of programmes to promote books and reading in New Zealand. It was established in 1972 and its programmes have included supporting writers' visits to schools and enabling writers to travel to different areas of New Zealand.
Sunnyside Hospital (1863–1999) was the first mental asylum to be built in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was initially known as Sunnyside Lunatic Asylum, and its first patients were 17 people who had previously been kept in the Lyttelton gaol. In 2007, Hilmorton Hospital is just one of the mental health services that are based on the old Sunnyside Hospital grounds.
Bright Star is a 2009 biographical romantic drama film, written and directed by Jane Campion. It is based on the last three years of the life of poet John Keats and his romantic relationship with Fanny Brawne. Campion's screenplay was inspired by a 1997 biography of Keats by Andrew Motion, who served as a script consultant.
Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master's thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.
Alice Allegra Englert is an Australian actress, director, writer, singer, and songwriter. She is best known for her roles as Rosa in the film Ginger & Rosa (2012) and Lena Duchannes in the film Beautiful Creatures (2013).
Top of the Lake is a mystery drama television series created and written by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee, and directed by Campion and Garth Davis. It was broadcast in 2013, and the sequel, entitled Top of the Lake: China Girl, in 2017. It is Campion's first work for television since An Angel at My Table in 1990.
The Luminaries is a 2013 novel by Eleanor Catton. Set in New Zealand's South Island in 1866, the novel follows Walter Moody, a prospector who travels to the West Coast settlement of Hokitika to make his fortune on the goldfields. Instead, he stumbles into a tense meeting between twelve local men, and is drawn into a complex mystery involving a series of unsolved crimes. The novel's complex structure is based on the system of Western astrology, with each of the twelve local men representing one of the twelve signs of the zodiac, and with another set of characters representing planets in the solar system.
Laurence Fearnley is a New Zealand short-story writer, novelist and non-fiction writer. Several of her books have been shortlisted for or have won awards, both in New Zealand and overseas, including The Hut Builder, which won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards. She has also been the recipient of a number of writing awards and residencies including the Robert Burns Fellowship, the Janet Frame Memorial Award and the Artists to Antarctica Programme.
The Power of the Dog is a 2021 Western psychological drama film written and directed by Jane Campion. It is based on Thomas Savage's 1967 novel. The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Set in Montana but shot mostly in rural Otago, the film is an international co-production among New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
