A Clear Dawn

Overview

This landmark collection of poetry, fiction, and essays by emerging writers is the first-ever anthology of Asian New Zealand creative writing. A Clear Dawn presents an extraordinary new wave of creative talent. With roots stretching from Indonesia to Japan, from China to the Philippines to the Indian subcontinent, the authors in this anthology range from high school students to retirees, from recent immigrants to writers whose families have lived in New Zealand for generations. Some of the writers—including Gregory Kan, Sharon Lam, Rose Lu, and Chris Tse—have published books; some, like Mustaq Missouri, Aiwa Pooamorn, and Gemishka Chetty, are better known for their work in theatre and performance. For many, A Clear Dawn is their first-ever print publication. The 75 writers explore the full range of human experience: from the rituals of food and family to sexual politics; from issues around displacement and identity to teen suicide and revenge attacks; from political chicanery to social activism to childhood misadventures. Funerals, affairs, accidents, friendships, crimes, jealousy, small victories, devastating losses, transcendent moments: all are here.

Reviews

"Clearly this new dawn of writers will exceed expectations . . . explosive, poignant, lyrical, breaking and healing hearts with their words." —Lynda Chanwai-Earle

"A Clear Dawn registers a demographic shift that has already happened in Aotearoa New Zealand. But more significantly it enlarges the dimensions of our imagination, revealing a more various and cosmopolitan literature than the publishing mainstream has hitherto accounted for. To call this a landmark anthology, then, is not to overpraise the writing it contains—it's a plain statement of fact." —Chris Price

"With a wide-reaching scope and a dazzling line-up of 75 diverse contributors, the writing in A Clear Dawn brings with it humour and irreverence, insight, wisdom, sharpness, joy and pain as a new generation of Asian New Zealand writers explore themes such as family, identity and the complexities of straddling two or more different cultures in mixed race families." —Kiran Dass

"Breathtaking in its parts and as a whole! Even if you know a part of Asia well, even if you feel in touch with present-day Aotearoa, this anthology will surprise you again and again, as, voice by unique voice, truth by particular truth, its artists build a mosaic you have never seen before." —Rajorshi Chakraborti

Author Biography

Paula Morris MNZM (Ngati Wai, Ngati Manuhiri, Ngati Whatua) is an award-winning novelist, story writer, and essayist from Auckland. Her most recent books are False River (Penguin, 2017), a collection of her essays and stories; and Shining Land (Massey University Press, 2020), a collaboration with photographer Haru Sameshima about the writer Robin Hyde. She is the editor of the Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories (2009) and a co-editor (with Michelle Elvy and James Norcliffe) of Ko Aotearoa Tatou / We Are New Zealand (Otago University Press, 2020). Alison Wong grew up in Hawke's Bay and has lived most of her life in Wellington. She spent several years in China in the 1980s and '90s, initially in Xiamen on a New Zealand–China student exchange scholarship, then later in Shanghai. She returned to Hong Kong/China for literary festivals and residencies through the 2010s, and now lives in Geelong, Australia, moving back and forth across the Tasman.