Biography Archives - Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books

Art Biography Nonfiction

Tony Fomison: Life of the Artist
by Mark Forman

A portrait of 'one of our greatest painters' who 'wanted to find a new visual language for what it meant to live in the Pacific'.

Hamish ConeyApril 17, 2025

Art Biography Nonfiction

Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist
by Jill Trevelyan, Jennifer Taylor and Greg Donson

A portrait of an overlooked artist of 'arresting originality'.

Hamish ConeyOctober 18, 2024

Biography Crime Nonfiction Society

The Survivors
by Steve Braunias

The last of a true-crime trilogy by a writer of 'bracing intellectual honesty and unpredictability'.

Guy SomersetSeptember 11, 2024

Art Biography Māori Nonfiction Photography

Ans Westra: A Life in Photography
by Paul Moon

An account of a photographer who 'lived and worked in the epicentre of a cultural debate'.

James LittlewoodJune 7, 2024

Art Biography Illustrated Nonfiction

Gretchen Albrecht: between gesture and geometry
by Luke Smythe

The 'best and most comprehensive piece of writing on Albrecht’s art and career'.

Leonard BellDecember 6, 2023

Art Biography Illustrated Nonfiction

Gordon Walters
by Francis Pound

An impressive monograph that is 'forensic in detail and fearsome in ambition'.

Hamish ConeySeptember 15, 2023

Biography History Literature Nonfiction Travel

Katherine Mansfield’s Europe: Station to Station
by Redmer Yska

An 'unconventional and peripatetic existence' in search of lost time.

Sarah RussellMay 24, 2023

Biography History Memoir Military Nonfiction

Death Among Good Men
by Nathalie Philippe

The World War I memoirs and letters of Lindsay M Inglis

Tom MoodyApril 21, 2023

Biography Children’s Literature Fiction Poetry

Iris and Me
by Philippa Werry
The Uppish Hen & other poems
by Robin Hyde

Two books present the life and work of iconic writer Robin Hyde to younger readers.

Paula MorrisApril 14, 2023

Biography History Illustrated Nonfiction Religion Society

Resilience: A Story of Persecution, Escape, Survival and Triumph
by Inge Woolf

A memory book of one woman's life is both family history and 'urgently topical'.

Leonard BellApril 12, 2023

Biography