New Zealand Writers
DUNSFORD, Cathie
DUNSFORD, Cathie (1953 - ) is a fiction writer, poet, and anthologist who has edited ground-breaking anthologies of feminist and lesbian writing from New Zealand and Australia.
Born and educated in Auckland, Dunsford was awarded her MA and PhD from the University of Auckland, for research on the Gothic novel. She has been a Fulbright scholar, teaching New Zealand literature and women's studies at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1983 - 1986. Dunsford has lived in the USA, the UK and Germany, and now directs an international publishing consultancy.
Dunsford's novels are Cowrie (1994); Kia Kaha (1998); The Journey Home (1997); Manawa Toa: Heart Warrior (2000); and Song of the Selkies (2001). Her fiction and non-fiction has appared in anthologies in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. She has also written Getting Published - The Inside Story.
Keri Hulme writes of Cowrie: "Take a wonderfully competent angling and archaeologizing lesbian...take an attractive - because accurate - picture of modern Hawai'i...and take the dignity and irresolution of all our lives... a gentle, determined, insightful and womanful book."
All four novels have been translated and published in Germany, as has her poetry collection, Survivors: Uberlebende (1990).
Anthologies edited by Cathie Dunsford include New Women's Fiction (1986); The Exploding Frangipani (1990); Subversive Acts (1991); Me and Marilyn Monroe (1993); Car Maintenance, Explosives and Love (1998). The range of titles suggests the colourful and energetic approach Dunsford takes in her selections of women's writing from Australasia and the Pacific.
There is an entry for Cathie Dunsford in The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature.
(KC.)
Updated Information
Ao Toa is an eco-thriller combining action and suspense with deep emotions and the sensual power of the natural world. It is peopled with believable women and men, teenagers and elders, suits and activists, farmers and gardeners. As they grapple with concerns ranging from sick children and indigenous medicines to toxic sprays and genetic engineering, they encounter the realities of corruption, politics and power. Ao Toa was launched in the UK in September 2004 at the International Science festival in Orkney.
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