Literary legend dies at 86
Poet Sir Vincent O’Sullivan has died at the age of 86.
His son, Dominic O’Sullivan, announced on social media that his father had died in Dunedin on Sunday.
“Hei aitua hoki, kua hinga toku matua,” Dominic O’Sullivan wrote.
“I am profoundly sad to share that my father, Emeritus Professor Sir Vincent O’Sullivan, died in Dunedin late yesterday. I was present with his wife, Helen.
“In the next day or two, Vince will travel to the Home of Compassion in Island Bay where he will repose ahead of his requiem mass later in the week at St Mary of the Angels, Wellington. Requiescat in Pace.”
Born in Auckland on September 28, 1937, O’Sullivan combined an academic career with that of a prolific writer and editor.
He graduated from Auckland and Oxford universities, and lectured in English at Victoria and Waikato universities before becoming literary editor of the New Zealand Listener.
Six years of fellowships at New Zealand and Australian universities followed, interrupted by a year as resident playwright of Wellington’s Downstage Theatre where the first of his several stage plays was performed in 1983.
Called Shuriken, it deals with the fateful misunderstandings that led to the death of 50 Japanese prisoners of war and a New Zealand guard at Featherston in 1943.
O’Sullivan concentrated mainly on poetry in his earlier years, with 11 volumes published beginning with Our Burning Time in 1965.
But in the 1970s, he turned increasingly to short stories, which have been published in five collections starting with The Boy, The Bridge, The River.
Death and other forms of loss, deprivation and betrayal are central themes.
In 1988, O’Sullivan resumed his academic career as professor of English literature at Victoria University.
His novel Let the River Stand
won the Montana Book Award in 1994, and was followed by others including Believers to the Bright Coast.
O’Sullivan was knighted in December 2021.