Riemke Ensing

Riemke Ensing arrived in New Zealand with her family as a twelve year old immigrant from Groningen, one of a wave of post-war migrants from the Netherlands. These migrants have contributed significantly to the visual arts, particularly painting and print making, but there have been few writers among them. Ensing trained for primary teaching, taught at primary school and lectured briefly at Ardmore Teachers’ Training College. After studying at the University of Auckland she was appointed Senior Tutor, specialising in New Zealand literature in the English Department of that university. She held this position until her retirement in 1999. For the majority of her career she had as colleagues the poets, Allen Curnow, Michael Joseph, Ken