Mapping the Godzone
Subtitle: a primer on New Zealand literature and culture
By: William J. Schafer.
Publisher: University of Hawai'i Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Honolulu
Language: eng
Number of pages: 197
Subjects: New Zealand literature -- History and criticism.; New Zealand -- Civilization.
Description: William Schafer read, and dreamed, about New Zealand before his first visit in 1995. Mapping the Godzone grew out of that visit and his attempts, as an American, to focus his impressions of New Zealand's literary culture and relate its mental and moral landscape to that of the United States. Through an idiosyncratic selection of contemporary novels and films, Schafer opens up a complex and compelling world.

Readers will encounter internationally celebrated writers such as Witi Ihimaera, Fiona Kidman, Ronald Hugh Morrieson, Maurice Shadbolt, Albert Wendt, Alan Duff, Keri Hulme, Patricia Grace, Ian Wedde, and Janet Frame; and the emerging New Zealand film industry and the handful of directors (among them Jane Campion, Peter Jackson, Vincent Ward, and Geoff Murphy) who have created a vital cinema renaissance since the 1970s.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-189) and index.