Sir Vincent Gerard O'Sullivan (born 28 September 1937) is one of New Zealand's best-known writers. He is a poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, critic, editor, biographer, and librettist.

Early life and family

Born in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

, O'Sullivan is the youngest of six children born to Timothy O'Sullivan (born in

Tralee Tralee ( ; ga, Trá Lí, ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the Lee River') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in Count ...

, Ireland) and Myra O'Sullivan (née McKean). He was educated at St Joseph's Primary,

Grey Lynn Grey Lynn is an inner suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, located to the west of the city centre. Originally a separate borough, Grey Lynn amalgamated with Auckland City in 1914. Grey Lynn is centred on Grey Lynn Park, which was not part of the ...

, and

Sacred Heart College, Auckland , motto_translation = Take Courage And Act Manfully , type = State-integrated Day & boarding Secondary school , religion = Roman Catholic Marist , gender = Boys-only , pat ...

, in Glendowie. He graduated from the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

and the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. O'Sullivan's first marriage was to Tui Rererangi Walsh, with whom he had two children; Dominic O'Sullivan and Deirdre O'Sullivan. He now lives in

Port Chalmers Port Chalmers is a town serving as the main port of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Port Chalmers lies ten kilometres inside Otago Harbour, some 15 kilometres northeast of Dunedin's city centre. History Early Māori settlement The origi ...

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

, with his wife Helen.

Career

O'Sullivan lectured at

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well kn ...

(VUW) from 1963 to 1966, and the

University of Waikato , mottoeng = For The People , established = 1964; years ago , endowment = (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $263.6 million (31 December 2020) , chancellor = Sir Anand Satyanand, GNZM, QSO, KStJ , vice_chancellor = Neil Quigley , cit ...

between 1968 and 1978). He served as literary editor of the ''

NZ Listener New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country b ...

'' from 1979 to 1980, and then between 1981 and 1987 won a series of writer’s residencies and research fellowships in universities in Australia and New Zealand: VUW,

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College (University of Tasmania), Christ College, one of the unive ...

Deakin University Deakin University is a public university in Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1974, the university was named after Alfred Deakin, the second Prime Minister of Australia. Its main campuses are in Melbourne's Burwood suburb, Geelong Waurn Ponds, ...

(Geelong),

Flinders University Flinders University is a public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia, with a footprint extending across 11 locations in South Australia and the Northern Territory. Founded in 1966, it was named in honour of British navigator M ...

in Adelaide,

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany and various other facilitie ...

, and

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

. These were interrupted in 1983 by a year as resident playwright at Downstage Theatre, Wellington. In 1988 he returned to VUW, where he was professor of English literature until his retirement in 2004.

Honours and awards

In 1966, O'Sullivan won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry, in 1979 he received the

Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award The Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award was a competition for short stories in New Zealand which ran every two years from 1959 to 2003 and every year from 2004 to 2014. The competition had multiple categories, including an essay section until 19 ...

for a short story, and in 1994 he received the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship. He won the

Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry The Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry is an award at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, presented annually to the winner of the poetry category. The winner receives a 10,000 prize. History The New Zealand Book Awards were set up by the New ...

in 1999.

In the 2000 Queen's Birthday Honours, O’Sullivan was appointed a

Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit The New Zealand Order of Merit is an order of merit in the New Zealand royal honours system. It was established by royal warrant on 30 May 1996 by Elizabeth II, Queen of New Zealand, "for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have rend ...

, for services to literature. In 2009, following the restoration of titular honours by the New Zealand government, he initially declined redesignation as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, because, in his view, it did not fit New Zealand "historically and socially", and that "it didn't seem to make much sense in contemporary New Zealand society". However, he accepted the change in December 2021. O'Sullivan was awarded the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer's Fellowship in 2004, the 2005

, and the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in 2006. He was the

New Zealand Poet Laureate The New Zealand Poet Laureate is a poet appointed by the National Library of New Zealand to represent New Zealand's community of poets, to promote and advocate for poetry, and to produce a number of published works during their two-year tenure as ...

for the term 2013 to 2015, and in 2016 he was the Honoured New Zealand Writer at the

Auckland Writers Festival Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki is the largest annual literary festival in Aotearoa New Zealand since 1999. It has about 200 public events each year featuring local and international writers as guests. History and staff The inaug ...

. ''The Dark is Light Enough: Ralph Hotere a Biographical Portrait'' won for him the 2021 General non-fiction award at the

Ockham New Zealand Book Awards The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are literary awards presented annually in New Zealand. The awards began in 1996 as the merger of two literary awards events: the New Zealand Book Awards, which ran from 1976 to 1995, and the Goodman Fielder W ...

Works

Poetry

*1965 ''Our Burning Time'' *1969 ''Revenants'' *1973 ''Bearings'' *1976 ''From the Indian Funeral'' *1977 ''Butcher & Co.'' *1980 ''Brother Jonathan, Brother Kafka'' (with prints by John Drawbridge) *1982 ''The Rose Ballroom and Other Poems'' *1982 ''The Butcher Papers'' *1986 ''The Pilate Tapes'' *1992 ''Selected Poems'' *1988 ''Seeing You Asked'' *2001 ''Lucky Table'' *2004 ''Nice Morning for It, Adam *2004 Homecoming - Te Hokinga Mai *2007 ''Blame Vermeer'' *2009 ''Further Convictions Pending: Poems 1998–2008'' *2011 ''The Movie May Be Slightly Different'' *2013 ''Us, Then'' *2015 ''Being Here: Selected Poems'' *2016 ''And So It Is: New Poems''

Short stories

*1978 ''The Boy, The Bridge, The River'' *1981 ''Dandy Edison for Lunch and Other Stories'' *1985 ''Survivals'' *1990 ''The Snow in Spain: Short Stories'' *1992 ''Palms and Minarets: Selected Stories'' *2014 ''The Families: Stories''

Novels

*1976 ''Miracle: A Romance'' *1993 ''Let the River Stand'' *2018 ''All This By Chance''

Plays

*1983 ''Shuriken'' (Downstage, Wellington) *1983 ''Lysistrata'' (not performed) *1984 ''Ordinary Nights in Ward 10'' (New Depot, Wellington) *1988 ''Jones and Jones'' (Downstage, Wellington) *1989 ''Billy'' (Bats Theatre, Wellington) *1994 ''The Lives and Loves of Harry and George'' (Downstage, Wellington) *1996 ''Take the Moon, Mr Casement'' (Court Theatre, Christchurch) *2003 ''Yellow Brides'' *2021 Simple Acts of Malice

Nonfiction

*1974 ''Katherine Mansfield's New Zealand'' (revised 2013) *1976 ''James K. Baxter'' (New Zealand Writers and Their Work series) *2002 ''On Longing'' (Montana Essay Series) *2003 ''Long Journey to the Border: A Life of John Mulgan'' *2020 ''Ralph Hotere: The Dark is Light Enough''

Edited works

* 1970 ''An Anthology of Twentieth-Century New Zealand Poetry'' (revised 1976 and 1987) *1975 ''New Zealand Short Stories: Third Series'' *1983 ''The Oxford Anthology of New Zealand Writing Since 1945'', co-editor with MacDonald P. Jackson *1982 ''The Aloe, with Prelude'' *1985 ''Collected Poems: Ursula Bethell'' *1988 ''Poems of Katherine Mansfield'' *1989 ''The Selected Letters of Katherine Mansfield'' *1992 ''The Oxford Book of New Zealand Short Stories'' *1993 ''Intersecting Lines: The Memoirs of Ian Milner'' *1997 ''New Zealand Stories: Katherine Mansfield'' *1984, 1987, 1993, 1996, 2003 ''The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield'' (vols. 1–5), co-editor with Margaret Scott *2006, 2012 ''The Collected Fiction of Katherine Mansfield, 1916–1922'' (vols. 1–2), co-editor with Gerri Kimber

Librettos

* 2002 ''Black Ice'' (with composer Ross Harris) * 2004 ''Lines from the Beach House'' (with composer

David Farquhar David Andross Farquhar (5 April 1928 – 8 May 2007) was a New Zealand composer and professor of music at Victoria University of Wellington. Biography Farquhar was born in Cambridge, New Zealand, in 1928 but spent most of his early years in F ...

) * 2008 ''The Floating Bride, the Crimson Village'' (with composer Ross Harris) * 2010 ''The Abiding Tides'' (with composer Ross Harris) * 2012 ''Songs for Beatrice: Making Light of Time'' (with composer Ross Harris) * 2014 ''Notes from the Front: Songs on Alexander Aitken'' (with composer Ross Harris) * 2014 ''Requiem for the Fallen'' (with composer Ross Harris) * 2014 ''If Blood Be the Price'' (with composer Ross Harris) * 2016 ''Brass Poppies'' (with composer Ross Harris) * 2018 ''Face'' (with composer Ross Harris)

Festschrift

* 2007 ''Still shines when you think of it : a festschrift for Vincent O'Sullivan'', edited by

Bill Manhire William Manhire (born 27 December 1946) is a New Zealand poet, short story writer, emeritus professor, and New Zealand's inaugural Poet Laureate (1997–1998). He founded New Zealand's first creative writing course at Victoria University of Well ...

and Peter Whiteford

References

External links

New Zealand Book Council profileAcademy of New Zealand Literature profilePenguin Books NZ author pageSteele Roberts author pageBridget Williams Books (BWB) author pageWellington Writers Walk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Osullivan, Vincent 1937 births Living people New Zealand poets New Zealand Poets Laureate New Zealand male poets University of Auckland alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford Victoria University of Wellington faculty New Zealand people of Irish descent 20th-century New Zealand novelists New Zealand male novelists 20th-century New Zealand male writers Writers from Auckland Knights Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit People from Port Chalmers