Dan M. Davin

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

During his lifetime Dan Davin was celebrated as the foremost practitioner of the realism that dominated the New Zealand literary tradition from the 1930s to the 1960s. Yet as nearly all his fiction was written from abroad, he can also be read as a diasporic writer, concerned with contemporary themes of displacement: the meaning of home, origins and belonging in both civilian and military contexts. In short stories about an Irish-Catholic childhood he established himself as a regional writer, stamping Invercargill and Southland with his imprint as definitively as Ronald Hugh Morrieson stamped Hawera and Taranaki with his. The philosophical enquiry voiced by his protagonists into the nature of fate and of man’s dislocation – features of his own self imposed exile – makes him more a…

2830 words

Citation: Wilson, Janet. "Dan M. Davin". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 March 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1157, accessed 28 March 2024.]

1157 Dan M. Davin 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.