Martin's blog has been quiet of late, due partially to his recent trip to Malacca & nearby islands, partially to the fact that he acquired some venomous virus while he was there & partially to the fact that is he currently finishing his latest book.
Martin Edmond and Tze Ming Mok are the winners of the 2004 Landfall Essay Prize.
Judge Vincent O'Sullivan says the winning essays immediately stood out from the other entries. "A good essay picks up on the times when it was written; it is a form that tells us what it is to be contemporary. Each of these essays tells me about the country I live in and come from in ways that are fresh and challenging."
"I was taken with Martin Edmond's sophistication and deft intellectual turns. Tze Ming Mok had a drilling eye for what it is to begin as an outsider, and a sharp assessment of what the inside implies and excludes."
In his essay 'The Abandoned House as a Refuge for the Imagination', Martin Edmond explores the rich imaginative source of old houses, of his past and of artist Philip Clairmont and writer Ronald Hugh Morrieson.
Tze Ming Mok explores belonging in 'Race You There'. Her essay looks at being Asian in New Zealand - the encounters of racism and colour-blindness and the need for Asian communities to address the Treaty of Waitangi.
I came across the above news today, through a chance series of links; & in one of those marvellous acts of synchronicity I also received through the post from N.Z. a DVD of a reading I did for the nzepc archives where Martin took part in the roles of an audience of one & interlocutor. I was expecting a DVD in a plain plastic case which I could then copy & send off to a few people who I owe "solid" favours to. Instead it came professionally presented, a beautiful wrap-around cover, bearing the University of Auckland coat-of-arms & with copyright problems all over it. So I'm in the process of finding out how to get further "official" copies.
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