Hamish Clayton, New Zealand

The Weltkulturen Museum invites Tina Makereti and Hamish Clayton, two leading emergent writers from New Zealand, to live and work in the Weltkulturen Labor. During this time they have access to the collections and benefit from the expertise of the museum’s research curators. The collections of anthropological artefacts, the museum and its history provide triggers for new texts.

The results of these residencies will be presented in a series of public events during the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Tina Makereti and Hamish Clayton investigate myths surrounding the history of New Zealand, from complimentary perspectives. Tina Makereti rewrites Maori myths. Hamish Clayton rewrites settler myths.

Hamish Clayton was born in Hawke’s Bay in 1977. He holds degrees in Art History and English Literature from Victoria University of Wellington, where he is currently working on a PhD in English. He is a regular author for the magazines Art New Zealand and New Zealand Books. “Wulf”, his first novel, was published by Penguin in New Zealand.

Successfully marrying pre-colonial New Zealand with a famously cryptic tenth-century British poem, “Wulf” provides intriguing insight, not only into early nineteenth-century New Zealand but also into the experience of New Zealand’s early explorers.