Auckland University Press imprint: 301 books

Omai was the first Polynesian to visit Britain. Picked up by one of Cook's captains, he was carried to England where he became a human curiosity and the lion of fashionable London. He was presented at Court, examined by scientists and painted by a series of artists. He learned to skate and play chess,...

A repository for a personal collection of quotations, scraps, pensées, and poems, this compilation offers keen insight into the influences and inspirations of a writer, namely Elizabeth Smither. There are no platitudes or sententious maxims here; instead, these sometimes pensive sometimes screamingly...

Looking outwards, into the past, and to the natural landscape for inspiration, these masterful essays offer elegant ruminations on the experience of living. Divided into four distinct sections, the collection explores memories of a small-town childhood, examines subjects such as the Rosetta Stone,...

This thoughtful, disturbing, and darkly funny new collection explores the theme of uneasy domestic life in poems arranged in three sequences and narrated by a gas fitter, his wife, and their teenage daughter. Without explicit storytelling, the secrets and peculiarities of each character are revealed in technically superb poetry that is deceptively easy to navigate.

A substantial fourth collection from a feminist poet chronicling life in the suburbs in all its banal and joyous detail. Janet Charman writes with wit, irony and sometimes anger, about being a wife, a mother, a daughter.

A well-loved New Zealand poet returns to territory that will be familiar to all readers in this collection of verse that takes on the uncelebrated, even mundane aspects of everyday life: family, work, suburbia. The book is divided into three sections. The first deals with a midlife career change;...

Affectionate yet satirical, this sequence of poems focuses on a family of giants and, in particular, on a young giant woman and her efforts to conceal from her normally sized lover how tall she truly is. The witty verses are infused with warmth and transcend a reader's everyday reality and experiences....

Where Selina Marsh’s first collection, Fast Talking PI, boldly, insightfully, and lyrically wrestled with the realities of being an individual of Pacific descent in a primarily European world, her latest offering fiercely combats the loss of a loved one with all of the techniques of poetry and the...

Walter Nash (1882–1968) was among the most influential of the group of Labour Party leaders who created the welfare state. He was a member of parliament for almost 40 years and he was one of New Zealand political leaders known internationally. Keith Sinclair's engrossing biography traces Walter...

The development of the artistic identity is revealed in this autobiography of an award-winning screenwriter. Anecdotes of travels and relationships with friends, roommates, and lovers are balanced with aesthetic encounters with artists such as Van Gogh, Gaugin, and Rimbaud. Episodes in Amsterdam,...

This stunning collection of poems is a characteristic mix of thoughtful reflection and precise imagery of landscape. Each piece captures an ordinary moment with a visual clarity but always pushes the descriptions further, broadening the intellectual and moral meaning. Finding a true balance, they...

This daring collection of poems follows an American marine during his tour of duty in the Iraq war and vividly contrasts his life in the war with the lives of his family members at home in America. Presenting various perspectives on the war and on contemporary American life in a stream-of-consciousness...

Touching on indigenous Maori relationships with the now-extinct, flightless moa; the attitudes of Pakeha, or European, settlers toward sheep; the iconography of whales and dolphins; the problems of pest-control; and the pleasures of pet-keeping, this modern-day bestiary is a fascinating study of human–animal...

This collection of poetry features five extended poems that explore the concept of beauty and the nature of language, discussing serious philosophical ideas with zest, energy, wit, and humor. A unique volume featuring remembered and misremembered song lyrics from John Lennon, Lou Reed, Johnny Cash,...