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Vincent O'Sullivan
'Vincent O'Sullivan has written a book more powerful and more moving than anything in our biographical literature.' Michael King
John Mulgan was part of a gifted yet uneasy group of young New Zealanders who made their mark between the wars men such as Ian Milner, James Bertram, Dan Davin and Geoffrey Cox. An Oxford graduate, he worked as a publisher at Oxford University Press before leaving for the front in World War Two. Fascinated but sometimes troubled by his home country, Mulgan saw New Zealand as a place of challenge and austere demands, a land that produced men more practical than cultivated. In his famous novel, Man Alone, he depicted it as a tough, often heartless country, characterised by the solitary fgure who has come to symbolise the male New Zealand psyche. He wrote more warmly of the place and the people in the poignant memoir, Report on Experience, published after his death. Mulgan was a glamorous fgure: handsome, gifted and good at anything he attempted. His last years were spent fghting in the Allied cause in Egypt and Greece, where he distinguished himself. But there were darker threads, too, which culminated in his decision to take his own life in Cairo, just after the end of the war and aged only thirty three. In this penetrating biography, Vincent OSullivan draws on a large collection of personal papers, offcial records and contemporary memoirs to paint a vivid portrait of a man who came to represent so much about his country and his time.
Distributor: HarperCollins, PO Box 1, Shortland St, Auckland Contact: customerservices@harpercollins.co.nz Sales Manager: matthew.simpson@harpercollins.co.nz
Contents
Chapter 1 'It's a fne, free country' Chapter 2 'Not a bad little town' Chapter 3 'There's only one Oxford' Chapter 4 'What a game...' Chapter 5 'Life's so damn transitory' Chapter 6 'A desert of realism' Chapter 7 A life 'I'd not like to have missed' Chapter 8 'Cairo by nightfall' Postscript Mulgan's Publications
Hugely popular military non-fction at its best A superb biography of an exceptional New Zealander John Mulgan's novel Man Alone is an enduring landmark, and his memoir Report on Experience (recently published) is a moving refection on the country he loved and left Vincent O'Sullivan is one of New
Zealand's most gifted writers and scholars
'Vincent O'Sullivan...has written a book more powerful and more moving than anything in our biographical literature. This is a fine and scrupulous biography, and the judgements of the biographer are soundly weighed and utterly compelling. ...already justly acclaimed as one of our most gifted poets, novels and playwrights, now adds another genre to his unparalleled list of literary accomplishments.'
Vincent O'Sullivan
Michael King
Distributor: HarperCollins, PO Box 1, Shortland St, Auckland Contact: customerservices@harpercollins.co.nz Sales Manager: matthew.simpson@harpercollins.co.nz