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Marilyn Duckworth

マリリン・ダックワース

Maririn Dakkwāsu

Aliases: Marilyn Rose Adcock

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
1935-11-10 （Ōtāhuhu, Auckland, New Zealand）
Nationality
New Zealand
Languages
English
Religion
Unknown
Residence History
Auckland, New Zealand → England (1939-1947)

Career

Occupations
Novelist, Poet, Short story writer
Active Years
1959-2017
Affiliations
New Zealand Society of Authors
Memberships
New Zealand Society of Authors (Honorary President 2011-2012)
Influenced By
Fleur Adcock, James K. Baxter, Maurice Shadbolt, Maurice Duggan
Nominations
1995 Wattie Book of the Year Award shortlisted (Disorderly Conduct), 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize shortlisted (Leather Wings)

Awards

New Zealand Literary Fund Award for Achievement
1963
Work: A Barbarous Tongue
Organization: New Zealand Literary Fund
Result: winner
New Zealand Book Award for Fiction
1985
Work: Disorderly Conduct
Result: winner
Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1987
Category: literature
Organization: British Monarch
Result: awarded
Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement (Fiction)
2016
Organization: Office of the Prime Minister
Result: winner

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

A Gap in the Spectrum

1959 Novel

First novel published in England at the age of 23.

women's identitycomplex relationships
Adaptations
  • [Radio] A Gap in the Spectrum (radio adaptation) (1972)

Disorderly Conduct

1984 Novel

A woman managing relationships with lovers and children demands during the 1981 Springbok tour. Won top NZ Book Award.

public eventswomen's strugglesfamily

Leather Wings

1995 Novel

One of her novels with a male narrator, dealing with darker sexual themes.

incestidentity

Swallowing Diamonds

2003 Novel

Story of a young woman who grew up in Wainuiomata.

suburban lifegrowth

Bibliography

  • A Gap in the Spectrum
  • The Matchbox House
  • A Barbarous Tongue
  • Over the Fence Is Out
  • Disorderly Conduct
  • Married Alive
  • Rest for the Wicked
  • Pulling Faces
  • A Message from Harpo
  • Unlawful Entry
  • Seeing Red
  • Leather Wings
  • Studmuffin
  • Swallowing Diamonds
  • Playing Friends
  • Other Lovers' Children: Poems
  • Explosions in the Sun
  • Fooling
  • Cherries on a Plate
  • Camping on the Faultline
  • The Chiming Blue

Style & Themes

Literary Style
witty and crisp dialoguekeen observational skills
Recurring Motifs
women with complex livesrelationshipspersonal sagas against public events

Legacy

Prominent New Zealand novelist and poet known for works featuring women with complex lives and relationships. Recipient of major awards including the 2016 Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement.

Quotes

  • I'd been cheerfully resigned to being nowhere in the attention span of the literary world. Suddenly it’s here upon me, which is great.
    Source: Comment on receiving 2016 Prime Minister's Award (2016)

Trivia

  • Sister of the poet Fleur Adcock.
  • Married four times and has four daughters.
  • Father was a psychologist and Esperantist, mother was a poet.
  • Had close friendships with writers like James K. Baxter.