{"id":4241,"date":"2011-03-17T06:30:10","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T17:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=4241"},"modified":"2011-03-16T22:26:37","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T09:26:37","slug":"yvonne-de-fresne-a-personal-tribute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/yvonne-de-fresne-a-personal-tribute\/","title":{"rendered":"Yvonne de Fresne, A Personal Tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-4245\" href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/yvonne-de-fresne-a-personal-tribute\/the-book-of-ester\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4245\" title=\"The Book of Ester\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/The-Book-of-Ester.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"96\" height=\"159\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/The-Book-of-Ester.jpg 96w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/The-Book-of-Ester-90x150.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 96px) 100vw, 96px\" \/><\/a>NZ writer <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookcouncil.org.nz\/writers\/dufresneyvonne.html\"><strong>Yvonne de Fresne<\/strong><\/a> died on Sunday, March 13 at the age of 81. <a href=\"http:\/\/beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com\/2011\/03\/yvonne-du-fresne.html\">Beatties Bookblog <\/a>carried a notice yesterday, taken from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.victoria.ac.nz\/modernletters\/\">University of Victoria International Institute of Modern Letters&#8217;<\/a> newsletter. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookcouncil.org.nz\/writers\/dufresneyvonne.html\">NZ Book Council website<\/a> contains a full account of Yvonne de Fresne&#8217;s contribution to NZ literature.<\/p>\n<p>I never met Yvonne de Fresne in person or heard her speak. I have read two of her books: <strong><em>The Book of Ester<\/em><\/strong> and the linked short story collection <em><strong>The Bear from the North.<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-4244\" href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/yvonne-de-fresne-a-personal-tribute\/bear-from-the-north-2\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4244\" title=\"Bear from the North\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Bear-from-the-North1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"91\" height=\"155\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Bear-from-the-North1.jpg 91w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Bear-from-the-North1-88x150.jpg 88w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 91px) 100vw, 91px\" \/><\/a>The latter in particular seized my imagination through the vivid persona of Astrid Westergaard, a New Zealand girl of Danish cultural heritage growing up in the Manawatu. I was caught by the powerful way in which de Fresne wove the cultural and family myths of Astrid&#8217;s Danish background into the Manawatu landscape, weaving a magical spell of immigration and belonging. I enjoyed <strong><em>The Book of Ester<\/em><\/strong> as well, but <em><strong>The Bear from the North<\/strong><\/em> is one of the works of contemporary New Zealand\u00a0 fiction that has most profoundly captured my imagination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NZ writer Yvonne de Fresne died on Sunday, March 13 at the age of 81. Beatties Bookblog carried a notice yesterday, taken from the University of Victoria International Institute of Modern Letters&#8217; newsletter. The NZ Book Council website contains a full account of Yvonne de Fresne&#8217;s contribution to NZ literature. I never met Yvonne de [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4241"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4259,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241\/revisions\/4259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}