Tail of the Taniwha: A Collection of Short Stories

Description

Tail of the Taniwha is a collection of short stories by writer, poet and playwright Courtney Sina Meredith that builds on the themes and ideas of her signature publications, Brown Girls in Bright Red Lipstick and the award-winning play, Rushing Dolls. Tail of the Taniwha push at the boundaries of written storytelling through their use of unusual graphic arrangements and typographic techniques as a narrative device. The end result is an idiosyncratic collection of stories that come alive in the way they interact with the page. Tail of the Taniwha advances, with an underlying Pacific politique, an ongoing discussion of the contemporary urban experience and what it means to be culturally sensitive in contrast of the general understandings of mainstream society.

In 2011, Meredith became the youngest artist and the first New Zealander and Pacific Islander in the history of the LiteraturRaum project to be invited to Germany as writer-in-residence for the Bleibtreu Berlin. Meredith toured with a group of esteemed writers for the International Indonesian Poetry Festival in 2012, was a delegate for the British Council for Phakama, and took part in activities in London that formed part of the Cultural Olympiad during the 2012 London Olympics. She has had her works translated into German, Dutch, French, Bahasa Indonesian, with Rushing Dolls soon to be translated into Italian.

"Fabulously sassy, Meredith turns her poetic lens to short fiction, capturing her journey from urbanesia to metropolitan Europe. Tail of the Taniwha is her smashing debut collection." -Robert Sullivan | "This is fine work. There is a lot of energy in the prose and on the strength of the observations and insights along the way we trust the voice." -Lloyd Jones | "...loud, lyrical, and audacious." -Paula Morris