Monday 4 November 2013 3:25pm
Charles Brasch Journals 1938–1945, a new book published by Otago University Press, spans a crucially formative period in the poet’s life.
Written in London during the Second World War, the journals give a vivid account of a restless young man ‘anxiously debating his future’. Is he a pacifist? Should he join the army? Is he homosexual? Are his poems any good?
Brasch was a deeply private man. His daily journal was a place where he could explore personal questions frankly. ‘As communication with other people was not easy for him, his intimate conversation was with his diary,’ says Margaret Scott, who transcribed Brasch’s journals.
On the question of his return to New Zealand Brasch writes: ‘I instinctively referred everything I saw to New Zealand, which is the alphabet of the world for me.’ Yet the thought of actually going back was ‘part vision, part nightmare’.
‘Some questions are resolved in the course of the journals,’ says Wendy Harrex, former OUP publisher, ‘others not, but it all makes compelling reading.’
Charles Brasch Journals 1938–1945 is an irresistible read not least for the parade of people that feature in its pages: from friends and family to conscientious objectors, civil servants working at Bletchley Park (as Brasch was to do), members of the Adelphi Players, fellow fire wardens, refugees from Europe, and artists and writers both English and Kiwi.
Brasch is ‘frank about himself as about everyone else’. This ‘lucid, honest, analytical diary’ gives a close-up view of the self-defining years of a young man whose quiet presence continues to radiate through the New Zealand literary and art scene.
Charles Brasch: Journals 1938–1945
Release Date: October 2013
Hardback, 245 x 170 mm, 648 pp
ISBN 978-1-877372-84-1, $60
www.otago.ac.nz/press
www.facebook.com/OtagoUniversityPress
For further information, contact:
Alan Roddick, Literary Executor of the Estate of Charles Brasch is available for interview.
Email alan.roddick@clear.net.nz
A list of Otago experts available for media comment is available elsewhere on this website.
Electronic addresses (including email accounts, instant messaging services, or telephone accounts) published on this page are for the sole purpose of contact with the individuals concerned, in their capacity as officers, employees or students of the University of Otago, or their respective organisation. Publication of any such electronic address is not to be taken as consent to receive unsolicited commercial electronic messages by the address holder.
