Award-winning poet and playwright launches first collection of short stories.
Tail of the Taniwha is a collection of short stories by writer, poet and playwright Courtney Sina Meredith that builds on the themes and ideas of her signature publications, Brown Girls in Bright Red Lipstick and the award-winning play, Rushing Dolls.
"This is fine work. There is a lot of energy in the prose and on the strength of the observations and insights along the way we trust the voice." - Lloyd Jones, author.
"Meredith's voice is an exciting addition to New Zealand and Pacific literatures. That voice is full of gusto, attuned to a range of lived and heart realities.'' - Robert Sullivan, poet.
Tail of the Taniwha push at the boundaries of written storytelling through their use of unusual graphic arrangements and typographic techniques as a narrative device. The end result is an idiosyncratic collection of stories that come alive in the way they interact with the page.
Tail of the Taniwha advances, with an underlying Pacific politique, an ongoing discussion of the contemporary urban experience and what it means to be culturally sensitive in contrast of the general understandings of mainstream society.
She was the first New Zealander and first writer of Pacific descent to hold the LiteraturRaum Blebitreu Berlin residency in 2011, and is an invited participant in the 2016 University of Iowa International Writing Program Fall Residency.
Her poetry and prose have been translated into Italian, German, Dutch, French, Spanish and Bahasa Indonesia.