The Short Story in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Keyword(s):
This chapter discusses the history of the short story in Aotearoa/New Zealand, arguing that the genre's cultural centrality is, from 1950, displaced at the very moment its literary viability becomes assured. It considers how shifts in publishing practices and audience consumption patterns allowed all manner of literary writing, short fiction included, to flourish. The chapter examines the development of Pākehā short fiction during the periods 1950–1968 and it traces the parallel development of Maōri short fiction after 1950, and how the journal Te Ao Hou (1952–1976) promoted Maōri writing in English which has flourished since the 1970s. Finally, it shows how the New Zealand short story has fared in the 1980s and beyond.