The declamatory return; a homeland as a “wearying enigma”. This all makes sense to me. The New Zealand that’s home to me may be a place of sheep and rugby and number-eight wire, whatever that is, but it’s also none of those things. Am I still a New Zealander?
Award-winning author Paula Morris‘ 80 page essay On Coming Home explores her own return to New Zealand, articulating questions that have been swirling in my own head since I came back home in December 2014. What does returning to New Zealand mean? Do I belong here? Can I write here? Is there a set of rules to being a New Zealander? To being a New Zealand writer?
When [Janet] Frame decided to return to New Zealand, she recalled the advice of Frank Sargeson. “Remember you’ll never know another country like that when you spent your earliest years. You’ll never be…
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