Pip McKay
Pip McKay’s travels through the former Yugoslavia informed The Telling Time, however the connections she forged within the local Croatian community while researching stories of New Zealand’s Croatian immigrants, have been inspirational. Pip holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Auckland (2017) and in 2018, was awarded a Creative New Zealand/NZSA Complete Manuscript Assessment award for the manuscript.
The novel was shortlisted for the 2020 NZSA Heritage Literary award and it's opening won the 2020 First Pages Prize, judged by an international panel and Sebastian Faulks, OBE.
Genre:
- Adult Fiction
Skills:
- Freelance Writing
- Novelist
- Print Media Writing (magazines/newspapers)
- Public Speaking
Branch:
Auckland
Location:
Auckland
Publications:
The Telling Time
The Telling Time by Pip McKay
Published by Polako Press on 10 August 2020, RRP $34.95 Distributed by Bateman Books, ISBN: 9780473520113
A captivating debut novel of impossible love and soul-destroying secrets where two young women fight to overcome adversity and transport the reader from Yugoslavia, to 1950’s New Zealand, and back again. Winner of the international First Pages Prize, 2020.
Two young women, a generation apart, travel to opposite sides of the world on fraught journeys of self-discovery.
1958: Gabrijela yearns to escape the confines of bleak post- war Yugoslavia and her tiny fishing community, but never imagines she will be exiled to New Zealand — a new immigrant sent to housekeep for the mysterious and surly Roko, clutching a secret she dare not reveal.
1989: Luisa, Gabrijela’s daughter, departs on her own covert quest, determined to unpick the family’s past. But not all decisions are equal and amid Yugoslavia’s brewing civil unrest, Luisa’s journey confronts her with culture shocks and dark encounters of her own.
‘A vivid, engrossing family story that crosses oceans and eras, exploring the price two women pay when new and old worlds collide.’ — Paula Morris