How does a city make a writer?

Redmer Yska is a Wellington based writer and historian, and is author to many New Zealand history works.

Redmer presents his latest work 'A Strange Beautiful Excitement, Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington, 1888-1903’, and discusses a new connection between Mansfield's family and Women's Suffrage. He tried, as he put it, to ‘catch a glimpse of her in the open air: striding through the gale, long hair flying’.

His research into Thorndon’s festering, deadly surroundings also led him to propose a new theory for the family’s 1893 move to Karori.

Public History Talks are a collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

Recorded at the National Library of New Zealand, 7 March 2018.