Shining Land: Looking for Robin Hyde was launched in Auckland on 11 November 2020. Lloyd Jones had the following to say:
Writing is an act of discovery. Most writers eventually learn that on their own. They are after something — they are unsure what — until spectacularly they arrive. Usually at a place they could not see when they first picked up the pen and began to write.
Collaboration is even more speculative. It is a conversation across disciplines and approaches and form … When that conversation fires, the collaborators shift to new places they could not have gotten to on their own.
In Shining Land, there are three collaborators. Paula, Haru and Robin Hyde. Hyde’s life and the writing she left behind provides a kind of biographical and textual landscape for Paula and Haru to muddle over. As Paula promises early in her piece, she and Haru are on a journey.
When the spirit of collaboration is properly followed new space is created for the writer and artist to pick over. They are nudged, pushed to new places, new perspectives, new possibilities. This is what collaboration is all about. Something different is on the brew.
I must admit to not knowing much about Hyde or her writing. If nothing else, Shining Land offers a fine introduction to an extraordinary life. Hyde packed a lot into a very short one.
Congratulations to Paula and Haru. I am sorry I couldn’t be there to raise a glass to Shining Land. It is immensely satisfying to have number two in the Kōrero series launched into the world.
