Stevan Eldred-Grigg

Stevan Treleaven Eldred-Grigg (born 1952) is the New Zealand author of nine novels, eight history books and various essays and short stories.

Initially a writer of short stories, the first three non-fiction works published by Eldred-Grigg were A Southern Gentry, a history of landowning families in the southern provinces of New Zealand, A New History of Canterbury, a social history of the province, and Pleasures of the Flesh, a book about sexuality and drugs in colonial New Zealand. In 1987 he published his first novel, Oracles and Miracles, the story of two sisters growing up in Christchurch before and during World War II. Since then he has written several fiction and non-fiction books. Kaput! focuses on Europe and portrays an ordinary housewife struggling to deal with day-to-day life in wartime Berlin during the period of the Third Reich in Germany.

Eldred-Grigg was the first living New Zealand writer of literary fiction to have had a novel translated into Chinese when his 1987 novel, Oracles and Miracles, was published in Shanghai in 2002 under the new title ‘剩’贤奇迹.

Eldred-Grigg has lived in Mexico City, Iowa City, Berlin and Shanghai. He is currently based in Beijing and Wellington. His three most recent books are Diggers, Hatters & Whores, a history of gold rushes in New Zealand; The Great Wrong War, a history of New Zealand during World War I; and People, People, People, a very brief history of New Zealand from 1200 to 2000.

References

• Biography on the New Zealand Book Council site
• Personal website