At Bridget Williams Books, we join writing and publishing colleagues across New Zealand in mourning the loss of Sir Vincent O'Sullivan.
Renowned for his incisive and enduring work, Vincent O’Sullivan brought depth and originality to everything he wrote. 'Few men needed fewer words than Ralph Hotere', he wrote in his celebrated biography of the artist (2020). But he himself was a man of words. In all forms – plays, poetry, stories, biography – his words were skilful, original, telling. They lasted with readers. He wrote often with a political or moral purpose, whether in the 1984 play, 'Ordinary Nights in Ward 10' or his superb biography of John Mulgan (2003). His voice, on the page and in person, commanded attention not by volume but by seeing.
Vincent O'Sullivan's work reached many quarters, including students in his classes at the University of Waikato and Victoria University of Wellington, and in his many collaborations. One of his last works was with Ross Harris on an opera about the mountaineer Freda du Faur.
The team at BWB sends love to his whānau, for a cherished author and friend.
Bridget Williams, Director
Tom Rennie, Publisher
Charlotte Macdonald, Chair of the BWB Publishing Trust
From Bridget Williams:
'Sir Vincent O’Sullivan’s contribution to our country’s literature is immense. His great body of work matched creativity with rigour, aligning an exceptional literary gift with a deep commitment to this place and its complicated narratives.
My conversations with Vincent about this literature began in the 1980s, when I worked on the two-volume edition of Katherine Mansfield’s letters that he co-edited (with Margaret Scott) for Oxford University Press; and they continued to the present. I think now of the reach of this extraordinary mind from that early, meticulous interest in Mansfield to the marvellous novella 'Mary’s Boy, Jean-Jaques' of 2022.
I am deeply grateful not only for the words written for us all by Vincent, but also for his friendship. This gift too was, I know, valued by many.'
Bridget Williams, ONZM, HonDLitt (Otago)