Lisa Greenwood

Lisa Greenwood (born 1955) is a New Zealand novelist. She was the 1990 recipient of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, one of New Zealand's foremost literary awards.[1]

Early life

Greenwood was born in Westmere, Auckland. She lives in Auckland and has one daughter, born in 1977.[2] She began writing full-time when her daughter started school in 1983, and preferred to write her novels by hand rather than using a word processor or typewriter.[3]

Literary career

Greenwood's first novel, The Roundness of Eggs, was published in 1986.[4] It is the story of a 52-year-old woman undergoing a psychological crisis.[2] A second edition was published in the UK by feminist publishing company The Women's Press.[5] Journalist Pauline Willis, reviewing the novel for The Guardian, commented that it was an "auspicious start for a young New Zealand novelist, following in the tradition of Janet Frame", and observed that it was interesting that a young women should "choose to explore an older woman's problems".[6] The Press noted that "rarely are first novels so well shaped, with language, imagery and incident all contributing to the overall form of the book".[7]

Her second novel, Daylight Burning, was published in 1990.[8] This book is described by the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature as " a powerful and darkly bizarre account of an Auckland businessman whose yuppie life is transformed by an apparently prophetic vision of Auckland destroyed by nuclear holocaust".[2]

In 1990, Greenwood spent time working on a novel in Menton, France as the recipient of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, which she intended to be a historical novel about women in religious life set in medieval times.[2][3]

References
  1. "Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship". The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  2. McLeod, Aorewa (2006). "Greenwood, Lisa". In Robinson, Roger; Wattie, Nelson (eds.). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-1917-3519-6. OCLC 865265749. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  3. "Mansfield fellowship winner writes by hand". The Press. 23 November 1989. p. 14. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
  4. Greenwood, Lisa (1986). The Roundness of Eggs. Auckland, New Zealand: Benton Ross. ISBN 978-0-9086-3617-4.
  5. Greenwood, Lisa (1988). The Roundness of Eggs. London: The Women's Press. ISBN 978-0-7043-4140-1.
  6. Willis, Pauline (9 August 1988). "Bulletin: The Roundness of Eggs by Lisa Greenwood (Women's Press, £4.50)". The Guardian. p. 16.
  7. Quigley, Margaret (18 October 1986). "Accomplished first novel". The Press. p. 21. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
  8. Greenwood, Lisa (1990). Daylight Burning. Auckland, New Zealand: Random Century. ISBN 978-1-8695-4011-1.


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