News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Mansfield’s “Bliss” considered a “paragon of modernist literature”

Mansfield’s “Bliss” considered a “paragon of modernist literature”

“Influence in writing is often spoken about as something dirty or shameful, something to be avoided, but here it offers a way for artists to connect across decades, to find courage and company outside…

Cocaine Bear is Actually Allan Henry

Cocaine Bear is Actually Allan Henry

The cocaine bear in Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear is an impressive feat of visual effects wizardry, but there was an actual person behind the 227-kilogram, drug-addicted beast, and that person was New Zealander Allan…

Reading Bliss and Bending Time with a New Story

Reading Bliss and Bending Time with a New Story

“Now widely anthologised, taught, and considered a paragon of modernist literature, ‘Bliss’ seems to prove what we have discovered as editors of NOON – that a story that generates powerful feeling,…

Birnam Wood a Gripping Explosive Thriller

Birnam Wood a Gripping Explosive Thriller

“It’s taken  Eleanor Catton 10 years to follow up on her Booker Prize winning novel of 2013, The Luminaries. Fortunately, her latest offering, Birnam Wood, begins with a bang, quite literally. A series of…

Paris Opera Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill a Star

Paris Opera Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill a Star

The Paris Opera Ballet has named New Zealand’s Hannah O’Neill as a new star dancer, a rarity as a non-French dancer in the world’s oldest ballet company, France 24 reports. Tokyo-born O’Neill, 30, is one…

Musician Jen Cloher Embraces Māori Heritage

Musician Jen Cloher Embraces Māori Heritage

With haka chants and ancient proverbs, Australian musician Jen Cloher connected deeply with Māori culture for their new album, I Am the River, The River Is Me – another personal reckoning after understanding their…

Max Gimblett Shows in San Francisco: The Beginning of Time

Max Gimblett Shows in San Francisco: The Beginning of Time

New Yorker and New Zealander Max Gimblett has opened his latest exhibition The Beginning of Time at leading contemporary gallery Hosfelt in San Francisco. In the spirit of impermanence –…

How The Fall Nearly Sank Flying Nun

How The Fall Nearly Sank Flying Nun

When the New Zealand indie label Flying Nun got a chance to record a live album by Manchester band the Fall, the tensions fraying the group almost destroyed the record company – as documented…

Melanie Lynskey Analyses Last of Us Character

Melanie Lynskey Analyses Last of Us Character

When The Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin pitched a role in the series to New Zealand-born actor Melanie Lynskey, he started with a bang: “He called me and said, ‘I would love for…

Eleanor Catton’s Latest Has a Serious Message

Eleanor Catton’s Latest Has a Serious Message

It has been 10 years since New Zealander Eleanor Catton became, at 28, the youngest writer to be awarded the Booker prize, Lisa Allardice writes in a profile piece for The Guardian. Her third…

Ten Essential Crowded House Songs

Ten Essential Crowded House Songs

“Crowded House is a band that initially won listeners over with their undeniable wit and oddball charm,” American Songwriter’s Alli Patton writes in an article, which recommends the band’s top ten best songs. “The New…

Our Musical Counterculture Like No Other

Our Musical Counterculture Like No Other

“Cut off from the ‘swinging’ innovations of 60s London, a generation of New Zealand musicians forged an underground scene that propelled the nation’s modern identity,” Garth Cartwright writes for The Guardian. “For a nation now…

Thomasin McKenzie Burns Up the Screen in Eileen

Thomasin McKenzie Burns Up the Screen in Eileen

“What a strange and spellbinding psychological thriller has woven out of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel, Eileen,” Hollywood Reporter reviewer David Rooney writes. “Rippling with sly humour and a bold command of the tropes…

On the Brilliance of Katherine Mansfield

On the Brilliance of Katherine Mansfield

“The Katherine Mansfield Memorial Garden is a peaceful, oblong-shaped park set in the midst of Thorndon, in Wellington. It is named after the city’s most famous daughter, the short story writer Katherine Mansfield, whose…

The Artist Thomas Monckton Wonderfully Funny

The Artist Thomas Monckton Wonderfully Funny

“Thomas Monckton has been performing his circus-informed, clown-honed show The Artist since 2017, and it shows. This physical theatre performance, now in its final outing at Sydney Festival following a successful season at…

Musician Lachi McBride One to Watch

Musician Lachi McBride One to Watch

In a new Rolling Stone AU/NZ series, the magazine takes a look at some rising Aotearoa artists who are looking to impress in 2023 and beyond. It may still be an uncertain time for…

Gibbs Farm Alive with Gravity-Defying Sculptures

Gibbs Farm Alive with Gravity-Defying Sculptures

“The Gibbs Farm sculpture park collection brings together some staggering outdoor sculptures in North Auckland,” Ocula magazine reports. “The vast majority of sculptures commissioned for the park – works by Anish Kapoor, Andy Goldsworthy, and…

Simone Kessell Discusses Her Yellowjackets Role

Simone Kessell Discusses Her Yellowjackets Role

In a Vanity Fair exclusive first look at adult Lottie Matthews (one of the Yellowjackets plane crash survivors), New Zealand-born actor Simone Kessell, 47, discusses where she’s been and asks, “How long can you…

Kimbra on the Ups and Downs of Fame

Kimbra on the Ups and Downs of Fame

At just 21, the New Zealand musician Kimbra became famous for her part in smash-hit duet Somebody That I Used to Know. So what happened after? The Guardian’s Katie Cunningham checks in with the…

Why Katherine Mansfield Still Divides Opinion

Why Katherine Mansfield Still Divides Opinion

In an edited extract from her foreword to Wild Places: Selected Stories by Katherine Mansfield, English author Helen Simpson asks: “How and why did Katherine Mansfield provoke such violent extremes of admiration and hostility, both…

Killer Doll Movie M3GAN Reviews Well in US

Killer Doll Movie M3GAN Reviews Well in US

New Zealand director Gerard Johnstone’s latest film, the comedy horror M3GAN, is well reviewed in Variety, with critic Owen Gleiberman describing it as “creepy, preposterous and diverting”. “Gemma (Allison Williams), a robotics engineer, works for…

Lynley Crosswell Creates Experiences in Victoria

Lynley Crosswell Creates Experiences in Victoria

New Zealander Lynley Crosswell took over as chief executive of Museums Victoria which includes the Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks, Immigration Museum, IMAX and the Royal Exhibition Building, in 2017. She is the first woman chief…

The Beths Gifted Fans an Outstanding 2022 Album

The Beths Gifted Fans an Outstanding 2022 Album

In a round-up of the year’s most outstanding albums, the Boston Herald’s Jed Gottlieb includes Auckland indie band The Beths’ Expert in a Dying Field in his top five. Other albums making the cut are…

Mansfield Left Other Modernists in the Dust

Mansfield Left Other Modernists in the Dust

“This year, we celebrated the annus mirabilis of literary modernism, whose greatest novel, Ulysses, and greatest poem, The Waste Land, both turned 100 … This year will see another modernist milestone. 9 January 2023 will…

TikTok for Good Award Goes to Jazz Thornton

TikTok for Good Award Goes to Jazz Thornton

It’s not quite the silver screen, but for the savants of the 16×9 phone screen, TikTok’s second annual For You Fest held in Sydney celebrates the top tier of talent to trends, including New…

Jazz Pianist Mike Nock Relearns Seminal Album

Jazz Pianist Mike Nock Relearns Seminal Album

At 82, the exuberant Christchurch-born, Sydney-based pianist Mike Nock has a lifetime of stories to share, and an abundance of insights to accompany them, Jessica Nicholas writes for The Age. She speaks with Nock…

Violinist Bryony Gibson-Cornish Appointed at RCM

Violinist Bryony Gibson-Cornish Appointed at RCM

New Zealand-born violist Bryony Gibson-Cornish is one of five new professors appointed to the String Faculty at the Royal College of Music (RCM), London. Gibson-Cornish, who performs as part of the Marmen Quartet, will…

New Zealand’s Indy Forging Own Pop Path

New Zealand’s Indy Forging Own Pop Path

Last month, a new indie pop star emerged – and she’s making the main character anthems of everyone’s dreams, according to Brittany Spanos writing for Rolling Stone. After nearly four years of writing, workshopping,…

Dancer Lance Savali Never Misses a Beat

Dancer Lance Savali Never Misses a Beat

Lance Savali is a Wellington-born dancer, who shot to stardom after beginning his career with compatriot Parris Goebel’s dance crew, The Royal Family. Speaking to Complex AU, Savali chats about working with some of…

Literary Review Looks at Mansfield and the Movies

Literary Review Looks at Mansfield and the Movies

“One of Katherine Mansfield’s defining characteristics was her restlessness, both personal and artistic: she was always most at home when on the move,” Claire Harman writes for the Literary Review. “It helped that she…

Crafting Savage x Fenty with Parris Goebel

Crafting Savage x Fenty with Parris Goebel

In-demand New Zealand choreographer Parris Goebel talks with Harper’s Bazaar about shaping the annual fashion spectacle Savage x Fenty and her longstanding creative friendship with Rihanna. While Rihanna is the mastermind behind the Savage x…

Artist Francis Upritchard Shows in Switzerland

Artist Francis Upritchard Shows in Switzerland

New Zealand-born artist Francis Upritchard, 46, has had her first solo show in Switzerland at Biel’s Kunsthaus Pasquart, exhibiting over 100 works. “Upritchard’s sculptures represent a striking amalgamation of fantasy and reality. Incorporating a wide…

Anything’s Possible for Choreographer Parris Goebel

Anything’s Possible for Choreographer Parris Goebel

From Justin Bieber to Rihanna, the entertainment industry’s elite all want to work with Parris Goebel, Grace O’Neill writes for Harper’s Bazaar Australia. The New Zealand-born choreographer seems to be at the height of…

Cult Guitarist Roy Montgomery Records New Music

Cult Guitarist Roy Montgomery Records New Music

Beloved by the likes of Dry Cleaning and Grouper, New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery’s life has been hit by more than one tragedy, stories he traces in meditative instrumentals, Stevie Chick writes in a…

Kate Newby’s NY Art Rose Through Cracks

Kate Newby’s NY Art Rose Through Cracks

In New York, on the Lower East Side, Laurel Gitlen gallery features two tile works that Kate Newby, the sculptor and ceramist, calls “murals”. Hung like paintings, they incorporate found objects, specifically glass, gathered from…

Artist Hannah Jensen Reveals Magic in Carving Paint

Artist Hannah Jensen Reveals Magic in Carving Paint

Christchurch-based artist Hannah Jensen speaks to Forbes contributor Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle about painting in reverse, where all the layers of paint are applied first, then carved to reveal what’s in her heart. “After carving on wood,…

Juliette MacIver Writes Romping Rhyme for Kids

Juliette MacIver Writes Romping Rhyme for Kids

“‘When darkness falls in rising mist, Beware the gruesome grizzled grist.’ Watch little smiles light up when they get their hands on this fun-filled picture book featuring a school trip that turns into a…

New Taika Waititi Film Stars Michael Fassbender

New Taika Waititi Film Stars Michael Fassbender

In 2001, the American Samoa football team were thrashed by Australia and recruited the services of a coach named Thomas Rongen in an attempt to reverse their on-the-field misfortunes. The story has now been…

Gemma New Makes Houston Symphony Debut

Gemma New Makes Houston Symphony Debut

Gemma New has studied under conductors whose names are familiar well beyond the cloistered halls of classical music: Dudamel, Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas. The 35-year-old New Zealand native, recently made her Houston Symphony debut,…

Inside the Secretive Gloriavale Christian Community

Inside the Secretive Gloriavale Christian Community

Like many New Zealanders, Fergus Grady knew about the disturbing stories that were coming out of the Gloriavale Christian Community. This secretive group, located in one of the most isolated parts of the country,…

Anna Fifield Returns to The Washington Post

Anna Fifield Returns to The Washington Post

For the past two years, Anna Fifield, 46, has been editor of the Dominion Post, New Zealand’s capital city newspaper. In January 2023, she returns to The Washington Post, where she worked as Tokyo…

Discovering New Zealand Crime Fiction

Discovering New Zealand Crime Fiction

Waitara-born writer Jacqueline Bublitz discusses New Zealand’s “significant contribution to the cannon of popular crime fiction” and recommends four authors “you should be reading now” in an article for CrimeReads. They are: Rose Carlyle…

Amyas Connell-Designed Modernist UK Home for Sale

Amyas Connell-Designed Modernist UK Home for Sale

High and Over is no ordinary home. This legendary concrete, Y-shaped building, designed by New Zealand-born architect Amyas Connell, is the UK’s first modernist house, deemed to be “of outstanding importance” by English Heritage….

Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble a New Yorker Fave

Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble a New Yorker Fave

Wellington-born Tayi Tibble’s poetry collection Poūkahangatus has been included in the New Yorker’s ‘Best Books of 2022 So Far’ list. The influential magazine writes: “Our editors and critics choose this year’s most captivating, notable, brilliant,…

Poet Hera Lindsay Bird Rides Wave of New Platforms

Poet Hera Lindsay Bird Rides Wave of New Platforms

In an article about 30-year-old Russian-born British poet Arch Hades, “the highest paid living poet of all time” and the “new meta verse”, Financial Times Baya Simons mentions Wellingtonian Hera Lindsay Bird, 35, part…

Tayi Tibble’s Poūkahangatus Reviewed in New Yorker

Tayi Tibble’s Poūkahangatus Reviewed in New Yorker

Wellington poet Tayi Tibble’s award-winning first collection Poūkahangatus has been described by The New Yorker magazine as “smart, sexy … fanciful and dramatic”. “This collection’s title poem, which describes itself as ‘An Essay About Indigenous…

Titan to Tachyons’ Sally Gates Talks Surrealism

Titan to Tachyons’ Sally Gates Talks Surrealism

New Zealand-born composer Sally Gates, a member of New York experimental metal band Titan to Tachyons, has been described by renowned musician John Zorn as “a powerful young guitarist with a striking compositional…

Studio Kind of Green Performs for Scotsman Sessions

Studio Kind of Green Performs for Scotsman Sessions

With the performing arts sector still impacted by the pandemic, The Scotsman is commissioning a series of short video performances from artists all around Scotland and releasing them online, with introductions from their critics. For…

Inside Emilia Wickstead’s Elegant West London Home

Inside Emilia Wickstead’s Elegant West London Home

With a fittingly fastidious approach to interiors, Auckland-born designer Emilia Wickstead, 38, brings her signature blend of proportion, colour and classicism to a family home in West London, finds British Vogue fashion features editor…

Maxine Funke’s Pieces of Driftwood Appraised

Maxine Funke’s Pieces of Driftwood Appraised

“Over a decade and four extraordinary albums, Maxine Funke has established herself as New Zealand’s premier purveyor of lightness, of songs whose beauty and mystery are only sharpened by their apparent ephemeral qualities,” Folk…

Alex Liu Receives MGM Film Script Deal

Alex Liu Receives MGM Film Script Deal

MGM and The Black List have named Auckland-based Alex Liu, 30, as the third recipient to receive a two-step Guild minimum open script deal as part of their two-year feature film script writing partnership,…

Pandemic Responses to Music from The Beths

Pandemic Responses to Music from The Beths

“Thanks in large part to an early 80s explosion of talent centred on Dunedin, and shared with the world via the Flying Nun label, New Zealand played a pivotal role in the evolution of…

Emmy Haul for Peter Jackson’s Beatles Doco

Emmy Haul for Peter Jackson’s Beatles Doco

The Beatles: Get Back producer-director New Zealander Peter Jackson has shared the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction series with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and fellow producers Yoko Ono Lennon, Olivia Harrison, Clare Olssen,…

Singing Shared Just How Marlon Williams Likes It

Singing Shared Just How Marlon Williams Likes It

Group singing has been central to New Zealander Marlon Williams’ life, journalist and author Jenny Valentish writes for The Guardian. He likens it to a spiritual practice, “without the theory or having to worry…

Class Consciousness in Mansfield’s Classic Story

Class Consciousness in Mansfield’s Classic Story

In a recent Forbes column, usually “devoted to Western (and sometimes Eastern) ‘Great Books’ or ‘Classics”’, contributor David Bahr this time examines the “minor Classics”. “These books or authors are not quite in the…

Jane Campion Cinema Appeals for Autistic Cipher

Jane Campion Cinema Appeals for Autistic Cipher

“In the complex, full-formed characters of Jane Campion’s cinema, I found connections with my own recent autism diagnosis,” Lexie Corbett writes in an article published by bi-monthly magazine, Little White Lies. “I was looking for…