Katherine Mansfield Centenary

Katherine Mansfield travelled alone from her homeland Wellington, New Zealand to London in 1908 at the young age of 19, determined to become a writer. Having been schooled there for three years from 1903–1906, she had fallen in love with the great imperial metropolis. Always rebellious, even as a child, she soon found that the freedom she had craved in London, compared to the narrowness of Wellington society, brought its own issues - including pregnancy, abortion, drug dependency and more. However, once she had met her future husband John Middleton Murry in 1912, her life became more settled and she and Murry were soon very much part of literary London in the 1910s and 1920s, up until Mansfield’s untimely death in 1923, at the age of 34. Her genius as a short story writer has never been in question, and today she is widely recognised as one of the main innovators of the modernist short story. Come welcome to our show Sherry Grant, Artistic Director of the International KM100NZ Festival, Festival Patron Dr. Gerri Kimber and cellist Martin Griffiths, for a detailed exploration of the life and work of this iconic writer.

WATCH: YouTube / Facebook