You have a Lot to Lose

A Memoir, 1956–1986

C. K. Stead

• Publisher: Auckland University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781776710577
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

New Zealand's most extraordinary literary everyman – poet, novelist, critic, activist – C. K. Stead told the story of his first twenty-three years in South-West of Eden. In this second volume of his memoirs, Stead takes us from the moment he left New Zealand for a job in rural Australia, through study abroad, writing and a university career, until he left the University of Auckland to write full time aged fifty-three.It is a tumultuous tale of literary friends and foes (Curnow and Baxter, A. S. Byatt and Barry Humphries and many more) and of navigating a personal and political life through the social change of the 1960s and 70s. And, at its heart, it is an account of a remarkable life among books – of writing and reading, critics and authors, students and professors.From Booloominbah to Menton, The New Poetic to All Visitors Ashore, from Vietnam to the Springbok Tour, C. K. Stead's You Have a Lot to Lose takes readers on a remarkable voyage through New Zealand's intellectual and cultural history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• Note by Way of Introduction
• Part One – Getting There
• Part Two – The Professor
• Part Three – Edging Towards the Exit
• Acknowledgements