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C. K. Stead

Author of My Name Was Judas

47+ Works 806 Members 16 Reviews 4 Favorited

About the Author

C. K. Stead is a critic, editor, poet, novelist, and educator from New Zealand. He was a professor of English at Auckland University. He is the author of numerous collections of poetry, short stories, novels and literary criticism. He received a New Zealand Book Award in Poetry in 1976 for Quesada show more and a New Zealand Book Award in Fiction for The Singing Whakapapa in 1995. He is the only person to have won the New Zealand Book Award for both poetry and fiction. He received a third place Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Award in 1972 for Smith's Dream and a Montana Prize in 2009 for Collected Poems 1951-2006. He also received the Jessie Mackay award, the King's Lynn Poetry prize, the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, and the Sarah Broom prize. The National Library of New Zealand named C. K. Stead the 2015-2017 New Zealand Poet Laureate. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: C.K. Stead at the Order of New Zealand Dinner at Government House in Wellington on 12 August 2011. By New Zealand Government, Office of the Governor-General - https://gg.govt.nz/file/19618, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66655033

Works by C. K. Stead

My Name Was Judas (2006) 123 copies
Mansfield (2004) 66 copies
All Visitors Ashore (1984) 52 copies
Talking About O'Dwyer (1999) 49 copies
The Necessary Angel (2017) 44 copies
Smith's Dream (1971) 44 copies
The Death of the Body (1986) 34 copies
Risk (2012) 28 copies
New Zealand Short Stories, Second Series (1966) — Editor — 22 copies
The Singing Whakapapa (1994) 18 copies
Shakespeare: Measure for measure: a casebook (1971) — Editor — 15 copies
Collected Poems 1951-2006 (2008) 14 copies
Sister Hollywood (1989) 12 copies
Villa Vittoria (1997) 9 copies
The Right Thing (2000) 7 copies
The Black River (2007) 6 copies
The Yellow Buoy (2013) 5 copies
Five for the symbol (1981) 4 copies
The Red Tram (2004) 3 copies
Crossing the bar (1972) 2 copies
Geographies (1983) 1 copy
Voices (1990) 1 copy
Poems of a decade (1983) 1 copy
Paris: A Poem (1984) 1 copy

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New Zealand born, Max Jackson is living with his French wife and children in Paris. He teaches at the Sorbonne and is writing a book comparing V.S. Naipaul and Doris Lessing. His wife, Louise is a professor and is also writing a book. They have a mutual appreciation of each others academic success but their personal life is faltering and Max has moved to the flat downstairs, while his wife and family reside upstairs. This allows them to share parenting duties.
Max becomes enamoured of another colleague Sylvie who is living with a German, Bertholdt Volker, a television producer. There is not a lot of future in this relationship, as Bertholdt has a wife and family in Germany whom he intends returning to.
One of Max's students, Helen White, seeks him out as she has discovered a book of poetry that he wrote when he was young. She admits to him that she is bipolar and is medicated with Lithium, her necessary angel. Max muses on whether Sylvie will become his necessary angel.
He embarks on relationships with both women but is forced to reconsider when it is discovered that a valuable painting has gone missing from his wife's flat, after he had foolishly taken Helen upstairs. A police case ensues although Louise unaware of Max's activity believes her cousins have stolen it.
This book provided a fresh setting and is peppered with literary references. At least I can now appreciate the references to V.S. Naipaul.
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HelenBaker | Nov 29, 2021 |
My Name Was Judas by C K Stead Not being a Christian I came to this open-minded-ish.It is completely enthralling. Written by an old Judas looking back on his life he takes us through the Jesus stories one at a time and we see them as he saw them.I'm sure this will upset Christians of pretty much any denomination in some way or another, but I honestly do not think that was the aim. I really think this is the first clear look at any of it that I have been able to get for many many years. Maybe because I am older myself and can empathise with Judas's retrospective wisdom. How foolish we all are when young! and long may it be so.Written with a clarity seldom encountered and no gimmicks or tricks. Just plain old solid writing performance from a long in the tooth author of good standing, at least in his own country.Not for the "bible as truth" people I'm afraid, but for those of us still "unsaved" a brilliant take on one of the oldest stories around.
 
May God help us all :-)
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Ken-Me-Old-Mate | 4 other reviews | Sep 24, 2020 |
Not memorable, except that it contained a lot of Maori words.
 
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edwinbcn | 1 other review | Feb 19, 2020 |
This is my first poetry book which I read for my f2f group. Like short stories they lack satisfaction. I also found that these ones were of a personal or literary nature so not so enjoyable for the reader. I selected this writer as I have read several of his novels but I was happy to return this to the library.
 
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HelenBaker | Jan 7, 2020 |

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Works
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