New Zealand Writers

FLETCHER, Beryl

Her novels take as their theme the re-writing of established power structures, particularly those of the patriarchy.

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FLETCHER, Beryl (1938 - ) is a novelist who has achieved considerable success since she began writing fiction at the age of fifty.

As it is for many women writers, writing fiction was a life-long goal for Fletcher which was realised later rather than sooner. Her novels take as their theme the re-writing of established power structures, particularly those of the patriarchy.

Born into what she describes as "a socialist working class family" in Auckland, Fletcher graduated in 1979 from Waikato University with a Masters Degree in Sociology. Living in New Zealand, Australia, England and the USA, she worked in a range of roles, including as a mother, a school dental nurse, and a University lecturer.

Her writing career began with a bang when her first novel The Word Burners (1991) won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in the Asia / Pacific region. It was selected as one of the top twenty in the 1991 Listener Women's Book Festival.

Shortly after the publication of her second novel, The Iron Mouth (1994), Fletcher was chosen to represent New Zealand at the prestigious International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, USA. She now holds the title of Honourary Fellow in Writing at the University. A third novel, The Silicon Tongue (1996) has been translated into Korean.

Fletcher's most recent novel The Bloodwood Clan (1999) is set inside an Amish-like cult called The Diggers, who live a 19th Century lifestyle in contemporary rural Australia.

Michelle Atkins writes in The Australian Bookseller and Publisher: "...Fletcher's writing is engaging - clinical at times, emotional at others. She conveys the gamut of emotions that would be felt by anyone living in an unfamiliar community, let alone one as disturbing as the Diggers."

Two Masters theses have been written on Fletcher's novels, both at the University of Osnabruck, Germany.

While primarily a novelist, Fletcher has published a number of short stories in anthologies inclucing New Australian Writing (1973); New Women's Fiction 3 (1989); Subversive Acts (1991); and Me and Marilyn Monroe (1993).

In 1999, as Writer in Residence at Waikato University, Fletcher began work on her first non-fiction book. Under the Doona looks at the lives of working class Pakeha women in 1940s and 1950s New Zealand and - as the "Doona" of the title suggests - Australia.

(KC.)

Updated Information

A House at Karamu (2003) is a funny and touching memoir in which Fletcher recalls her wartime childhood, her discovery of opera, feminism and more. It tells the story of one life, yet will be familiar to many.

Beryl is the 2006 Writer in Residence at the historic Randell Cottage in Wellington.