Corballis, Tim
IN BRIEF
Tim Corballis has published a number of novels, and his work has featured in publications, journals and anthologies. Corballis has received awards and prizes for his writing and in 2005 he was the recipient of the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers’ Residency. He says that the relationship that a person has to a place is highly significant and ‘effects connections with others, with ourselves, our histories, our memories’. Much of his fiction reflects and explores these thoughts.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Corballis, Tim (1971 -) is a fiction writer. His first novel, Below, was published in 2001. His fiction has also appeared in Sport, Landfall, The Picnic Virgin ed. by Emily Perkins and Spectacular Babies ed. by Anderson and Manhire.
Corballis was born in Montreal and lived there until 1977, when he came to live in New Zealand. He lived first in Auckland, and then Dunedin before settling in Wellington. He has attended both the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington. It was at Victoria University that Corballis completed Bill Manhire’s Creative Writing Program, now The International Institute of Modern Letters. In 2000, he was awarded the Schaeffer Fellowship through the Institue of Modern Letters, which allowed him to study at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the US. At the end of the course, Corballis received the Adam Prize in Creative Writing for Below.
Corballis describes his his work in Below and in more recent projects as "a sort of landscape writing which moves beyond issues of national identity and into issues of personal identity. That is, in the relationship between a person and their place, in ways this effects connections with others, with ourselves, our histories, our memories – not as New Zealanders, but as people".
Many of the reviews of Below echo this description. Anna Jackson, writing for the Waikato Times, describes the novel as 'a novel about space, and form, it is beautifully constructed, divided into just five long parts; like movements in a piece of music.' Gavin McLean, in the Otago Daily Times, writes that 'by evoking the fear and wonder of the underground… by drawing comparisons between its depths, twists and turns and the distances between what people say and do, Corballis has created a powerful and convincing suspense story that merits a wide readership.'
In Measurement (2002), Antony travels south after the death of his sister, missing the funeral and leaving behind his partner and child, and accompanied only by his well-thumbed copy of the philosophical text, Measurement. This beautifully written novel is a moving meditation on the intricate relationship between life and memory.
In 2003, Corballis was the Randell Cottage Writers Trust Resident.
Tim Corballis has been awarded the 2005 Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers’ Residency. He took up the eleven-month residency in August of the same year. While in Berlin, Corballis researched and worked on his fourth novel, comprising three thematically linked novellas, one of which is set in Europe and partly in Berlin.
The Fossil Pits (2005) was published by Victoria University Press. The novel tells the story of Walter Mantells 1848 journey down the east coast of the South Island, to set aside reserves for Ngai Tahu within a large block purchased by the government. The novel is told in counterpoint with a modern womans very different story of violence on a South Island farm.
Corballis also contributed one short story to the new anthology, Myth of the 21st Century (Reed, 2006).
Tim Corballis continues to live in Wellington, where, in addition to his writing, he works as a Library Assistant at the Alexander Turnbull Library.
writers in schools information
Corballis is available for school visits as part of the Book Council's Writers in Schools programme.
