Preservation
Published on 20. September 2013
30 pages
978-1-86979-955-7 (ISBN)
Description
A serious but also blackly funny short story about old friendships, love and formaldehyde by one of New Zealand's most distinguished writers.
Now middle-aged, the one-time teenage rebels live staid, safe lives, while their friend Jan, who had been the good one of their pack, is now locked up in prison. With Jan's mother just dead, there is no one to organise the funeral except for her two old class mates. They agree to help, but Jan's request for a special dress for the corpse leads to a moral dilemma.
More details
Person
Fiona Kidman has published over 30 books, including novels, poetry, non-fiction and a play. She has worked as a librarian, radio producer and critic, and as a scriptwriter for radio, television and film. The New Zealand Listener wrote: 'In her craft and her storytelling and in her compassionate gutsy tough expression of female experience, she is the best we have.'
She has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships; in more recent years, The Captive Wife was runner-up for the Deutz Medal for Fiction and was joint-winner of the Readers' Choice Award in the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and her short story collection The Trouble with Fire was shortlisted for both the NZ Post Book Awards and the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award. Her novel This Mortal Boy won the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize, the NZ Booklovers Award, the NZSA Heritage Book Award for Fiction and the Ngaio Marsh Crime Writing Award for Best Novel.
She was created a Dame (DNZM) in 1998 in recognition of her contribution to literature, and more recently a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour. 'We cannot talk about writing in New Zealand without acknowledging her,' wrote New Zealand Books. 'Kidman's accessible prose and the way she shows (mainly) women grappling to escape from restricting social pressures has guaranteed her a permanent place in our fiction.'
