Philippa Werry, Juanita Deely, The Cuba Press & Unity Books warmly invite you to the launch of two Robin Hyde books.

At Unity Books Wellington

Wednesday 1 March 2023

6.00–7.30pm

Details: Facebook event

Iris and Me by Philippa Werry

Iris Wilkinson, who wrote poetry, novels and journalism under the pen name Robin Hyde, left New Zealand for England in January 1938. On the way, intrigued by glimpses of China, she ventured inland despite the war raging there, becoming one of the first woman war correspondents – a feat that was all the more remarkable because she struggled with mental health and suffered a disability that meant she had a lifelong limp. Robin Hyde doesn’t tell her story – it is narrated by a loyal but mysterious companion who asks the reader to guess the secret. Iris and Me is an imaginative account of the adventures of one of Aotearoa’s most significant writers, presented in a form that Hyde herself would have loved – the verse novel. It was the runner-up for the NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize 2022.

The Uppish Hen and other poems by Robin Hyde

In 1934, four-year-old Derek Challis found a homemade book in his Christmas stocking. On the typed pages bound with pink ribbon were poems written for him by his mother, the writer Robin Hyde. Derek, known as Derry, treasured the gift and could recite the poems until his death in 2021. Hyde hoped the collection would be published “one fine day” and that fine day has come.