For Someone I Love
A collection of writing by Arapera Blank
A perfect collection of a writer’s work: diverse, original and timeless, from 1958 to 1990. The book includes Arapera Blank’s poetry, short stories and essays – each as riveting as the other. Decades later, her words are crisp and relevant, and her depiction of Māori culture is still real and unfiltered. Blank explores the clash of Māori and Pakeha culture, and the role of women – particularly Māori women.
Blank’s pride in her Māori culture shines through with descriptions of words and phrases, allusions to Māori legends, and imagery of the New Zealand landscape. She was one of New Zealand’s first bilingual poets and in 1959, she became the first Māori writer to win a Katherine Mansfield Award.
This extraordinary hardcover book showcases Blank's poetry, short fiction and essays written over thirty years, and includes photography from her Swiss husband, Pius Blank. Both now deceased the book is a tribute to a glamorous aesthetic and vision for biculturalism and feminism.