These must be taken together

I have just read two books, which, taken separately, would not be, as the late Kathleen Vellacott-Jones would have put it, of any great shucks. But together assume an importance that neither of their publishers might have believed they would achieve.

The books are Survive the Peace by Cyprian Ekwensi, and Ten Modern New Zealand Story Writers, selected and edited by Phoebe Meikle. The first is published by Heineman, and the second by Longman Paul.

Of the New Zealand stories I have taken Valley as being the one which most appealed to me, a story of which I said, “What a beautiful story, how beautifully written it is, with what human sympathy and with what affection for human frailties.’’

The author of Valley is a Maori, and the author of Survive The Peace is a Nigerian, once a Biafran, but no longer a Biafran as his story shows and tells how Nigeria did what it might have condemned in another na tion; how it did that thing, un forgiveable in others, by absorbing and blotting out a people asking for independence.

Perhaps all things are only wrong when someone else does them. The author shows the horrors and the per sonal conflicts of civil war, and leaves us with the feeling that somewhere still, all this horror is hiding away waiting to spring upon us. And Valley describes a peaceful daily existence during four seasons of the year.

Biafra and New Zealand are almost opposite one another on the terrestrial globe, and the stories about New Zealand and the story about Biafra are written in the same language: all the authors have used standard English, and so can be understood by one-third of the world’s population.

The Biafran who wrote of the sadness of his country can read without any problem the stories written by the New Zealanders; and Patricia Grace who wrote Valley can read about Biafra without mis understanding. Both are works of fic tion describing the places in which they are set and the emotions of the people concerned.

If England has done nothing else for the world (and I think she has) it has given many millions of people a common tongue. Why do some self centred academics try to create a local and uninternational form of this great international language?

Neither of those books in itself is of great importance. Which of you any longer knows where Biafra was? Or cares? Where, oh where is that Valley?

Both books are very readable, and I do recommend the reading of them in juxtaposition as I did.

Peter Livingston

(Ten Modern New Zealand Story Writers,

Edited by Phoere Meikle, and published by Longman Paul.

Cased $6.95, and paper $4.95.

SURVIVE THE PEACE by Cyprian Ekwensi. Published by Heineman at £3.75. Longman Paul is at 182 Walras Road, Auckland 10, and Heineman at 48 Charles Street, London WIX BAH.)