Alex Calder

Europeans arrive on a beach, make markets and push inland. They take the land and transform it. They make themselves at home; they dream of other places. And the stories they write take shape in settings - the beach, the farm, the bush, the suburb - that become imaginary versions of actual places. Those settings sometimes host stories that are too simple - too flattering, too blaming - but in the work of our best writers, a richer history of settlement comes into focus. Taking a new approach to the cultural history of this country, The Settler's Plot is a study of the relationship between literature and place in New Zealand. Through fascinating and unpredictable readings of some of our greatest literature, from Maning and Guthrie-Smith to Mansfield, Sargeson, Curnow and Frame, Calder investigates the often contradictory meanings that Pakeha have found in our most familiar settings.

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