C. K. Stead

My Name Was Judas

"Will appeal to lovers of the wayward novel game as it is played by Lawrence Sterne or Italo Calvino" - Jackie Wullschläger, Financial Times Professor Harry Butler is obsessed with the Mind/Body problem. Unfortunately, this is not the least of his problems. Harry's wife has turned his study into a sufi shrine where she sits cross-legged and chants for hours on end: "I am not this body..." And Harry doesn't know it yet but the Drug Squad have taken up residence in his kitchen so as to observe the movements of his neighbours and their visitors. Among these visitors, photographed by the drug squad, is one of his oldest friends. And living next door is a woman Harry may have had an encounter with in Singapore. The University is no escape from these complications on the domestic front: Harry's relationship with a student is causing concern among the Philosophy Department Women's Collective. Some of his colleagues also suspect him of going astray academically. The story takes place in Auckland, New Zealand. But who is telling the story? Why is he in Europe? Why does he keep moving from one city to another, and why does he seem to require the presence of a certain Uta Haverstrom in order to write it? The Death of the Body is a delightful blend of wit, intelligence and excitement.

Death Of The Body

Max Jackson, a New Zealander living and lecturing in Paris, has a complicated arrangement with his estranged French wife, Louise. In love with his younger Sorbonne colleague Sylvie, he finds himself entangled with Helen, a troubled young English student. When a Cezanne painting goes missing from Louise's apartment, the boundaries he has struggled to maintain threaten to collapse. Infused with literary musings and the spirit of Paris, The Necessary Angel is as much an ode to the power of literature as a nuanced exploration of love, fidelity and the balance of power within relationships.

The Necessary Angel

From his birth in 1932 to his first departure from New Zealand in 1956, this "autobiopsy" chronicles C. K. Stead's first 23 years, casting a critical eye and a novelist's voice over the author's own life. From running wild as a boy in Cornwall Park and joining the Labour Party at age seven to falling in love with Diane Henderson, a wide range of adventures and experiences are revealed with honesty and the clarity only time can bring. An Auckland native, Stead here paints his hometown as a land of myth and symbol, laying claim to his own land and its history. Using his wonderful flair for language, he brings alive elements of legendary New Zealand literary history, such as his early friendships with celebrated writers Frank Sargeson and Janet Frame. Speaking out directly for the first time about his life—after once promising to never write an autobiography—Stead has here composed a truly inspired memoir, wonderfully illuminating the early beginnings of his own time and place in New Zealand history.

A Memoir, 1932-1956

South West of Eden

We all know the story of Jesus told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but what about the version according to Judas? In this witty, original and teasingly controversial account, some forty years after the death of Jesus, Judas finally tells the story as he remembers it. Looking back on his childhood and youth from an old age the gospel writers denied him, Judas recalls his friendship with Jesus; their schooling together; their families; the people who would go on to be disciples and followers; their journeys together and their dealings with the powers of Rome and the Temple. His is a story of friendship and rivalry, of a time of uncertainty and enquiry, a testing of belief, endurance and loyalty.

A chance meeting has New Zealand writer Laszlo Winter thinking back to his time in London in the late 1950s. The Empire might be in a state of collapse, but for young 'colonials', England remains a mythical place that draws them from the farthest corners of the globe. There was Australian Samantha Conlan, clever, desirable, hopelessly in love with married Jewish New Zealander Freddy Goldstein, who carried with him a dark history. Rajiv, an earnest young Indian at work on a study of Yeats and the Indian mind. The enigmatic Margot, whose bond with her athletic brother Mark troubled Laszlo in ways he didn't quite understand. Heather, the call girl with whom Laszlo exchanged lessons on Shakespeare for lessons in love. The great writers of the time, and the details of their lives are recorded by Samantha in her idiosyncratic research project that she named her Secret History of Modernism. There was all of that and more, and then there was Laszlo, knocking blindly about among them, despairing at his academic prospects, and gradually realising that he was, would only ever be, a storyteller. Now, years later, from the other side of the world, the people seem to spring to life again, in this beguiling work by one of New Zealand's foremost writers.

The Secret History Of Modernism

For more than 40 years, C. K. Stead has been New Zealand's leading literary and cultural critic. Whether writing about Christianity or a trip to Croatia, he always brings a clear personal point of view, a strong analytical bent, and a witty pen to his work. In this latest collection of critical writing Book Self, a sequel to his successful books Kin of Place, Answering to the Language and The Writer at Work, Stead takes the reader on a personal journey, from his earliest discovery of poetry as a young man to his experiences on the literary trail over the last few years. And he takes us on a trip through literary history, from Katherine Mansfield and T. S. Eliot to Michael King and Elizabeth Knox. For the first time, Stead includes in this book a series of journal extracts that allow readers closer to the mind of the writer. 'Here the ego is exposed-not quite naked, but now and then with its shirt off,' he writes. In Book Self we see a great New Zealand critic at work - a writer with strong personal views about other writers and a deep commitment to the role of role of criticism in literary life.

C. K. Stead

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