Frank Sargeson
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Frank Sargeson (21 March 1903 – 1 March 1982) was the pen name of Norris Frank Davey. He is considered one of New Zealand's foremost short story writers. Like Katherine Mansfield, Sargeson helped to put New Zealand literature on the world map.
Born in Hamilton, Sargeson has been credited with introducing New Zealand English into short stories. His technique was to write the story without mentioning the setting. He also used a semi-articulate style which means that the story was written from a naive point of view. Events are simply told but are not explained.
Although Sargeson became known for his literary depiction of the laconic and unsophisticated New Zealand male, his upbringing had in fact been comfortable albeit puritanical. Upon completing his training as a solicitor, he spent two years in the United Kingdom. Sometime in the 1930s, he began living year-round in his parents' holiday cottage at 14A Esmonde Road in Takapuna which was then a northern suburb of Auckland but is now in North Shore City. He eventually inherited the property which became for several decades an important gathering place for Auckland's bohemia and literati.
When Janet Frame was released in 1955 from eight years of involuntary commitment in New Zealand psychiatric hospitals, Sargeson converted a garden shed on his property into a bedroom and invited her to live in it. He then urged her to write every day, read her draft work closely, and introduced her to New Zealand's literati, such as it was. Thus Sargeson played a crucial role in educating and nurturing one of New Zealand's greatest writers.
During the 1930s and 40s, Sargeson experienced considerable economic hardship, as his literary output earned him very little money. This experience left him permanently sympathetic to the Left. For example, he quietly advocated closer relations between New Zealand and Maoist China. He was also gay at a time and in a place when homosexuality was neither legal nor fashionable. In 1929, he was arrested on a morals charge in Wellington, but later acquitted. King (1995) believes that this trial explains why Sargeson adopted a pen name and never practiced the profession for which he had trained.
Sargeson died in Auckland.
[edit] See also
[edit] Biography
- Michael King, 1995. Frank Sargeson: A Life.
[edit] External links
- Biography and links, by the New Zealand Book Council.
- Takupan Library. Contact the Library to make an appointment to visit the Sargeson's house in Takapuna.
- Lay, Graeme, ed., North Shore Literary Walks.
