Abstract
‘To writer and reader alike, the prospects for indigenous literature in the Southwest Pacific just after the First World War could not have appeared very roseate. Following a cultural resurgence in both Australia and New Zealand during the 1890s, hopes had dwindled during wartime, and new strength ready to take over was in short supply. ‘Colonial’ writing was in fact for the most part still just that, despite a large measure of political self-determination already achieved, ans was to remain colonial for some time to come. No single poet, novelist, or playwright of undoubted stature could be counted on either side of the Tasman Sea. There were no local literary reviews or other such journals; newspapers took note of whatever might occasionally venture into print, continuing to serve this function so faithfully that some of them are still sources of respectable criticism. As a result of assignments falling to the lot of the Anzacs during the First World War, a catastrophically high percentage of the best young men were sacrificed in the costly attempt upon Gallipoli and in the scarcely less savage campaigns on the Western Front. What incipient authorship there was among them, never to develop, cannot be known, but it is not unreasonable to surmise that the scarcity and mediocrity of literary production in the 1920s must have been related to so much slaughter of talent among the generation that otherwise would have survived to be given its chance.’(Author’s introduction)
