Hamish Clayton was born in 1977 in Napier, New Zealand. After leaving school he moved to Wellington and worked various low-paying jobs while pursuing ambitions in painting. After a few years of limited success he chose to follow another path and enrolled at Victoria University of Wellington to study English Literature and Art History. In both lines of study he has focused largely on New Zealand subjects. His MA thesis in English Literature looked at the New Zealand graphic novelist Dylan Horrocks\u2019s \u00bbHicksville: A Comic Book\u00ab (1998), and examined, in part, the close relationship between New Zealand\u2019s art and literary histories. While still completing his MA degree, Clayton began to publish criticism and reviews in journals and magazines such as \u00bbArt New Zealand\u00ab and \u00bbNew Zealand Books\u00ab.<\/p>\n
Hamish Clayton\u2019s first novel, \u00bbWulf\u00ab, was published in 2011. \u00bbWulf\u00ab retells the story and dealings of English trader John Stewart with the Ngati Toa chief, Te Rauparaha, which resulted in the notorious massacre of 1830 at Akaroa on the east coast of New Zealand\u2019s South Island. Told from the perspective of two sailors on board Stewart\u2019s ship, the novel makes repeated use of the tenth century Anglo-Saxon poem, \u00bbWulf and Eadwacer\u00ab, as a metaphor to explore the post-colonial politics of place in New Zealand, and the imbrications of story-telling and history. \u00bbWulf\u00ab met with high acclaim, earning praise for its \u00bbhaunting and highly original engagement with New Zealand history\u00bb in the \u00bbNew Zealand Listener\u00ab, as well as its intense, lyrical prose, with Murray Bramwell describing it in \u00bbNew Zealand Books\u00ab as \u00bba powerfully imagined novel \u2013 assured, crisply poetic and spellbinding in its unfurling narrative\u00ab. The book won the 2012 NZSA Best First Book Award for Fiction and award\u2019s convenor Chris Bourke said the judges\u2019 considered \u00bbWulf\u00ab to be one of the most memorable debut novels in recent times. Bourke went on to comment, \u00bbHamish Clayton’s first novel is a work of bravura lyricism, a brilliant feat of imagining that transforms historical events which occurred in early nineteenth century New Zealand into metaphor and myth.\u00ab Clayton is currently writing a PhD thesis re-examining the work of the neglected New Zealand writer, David Ballantyne. His study is focussed, in particular, around Ballantyne\u2019s 1968 novel, \u00bbSydney Bridge Upside Down\u00ab, which, though often regarded as a masterpiece of New Zealand fiction, has never been given the sustained critical or academic attention the novel deserves.<\/p>\n
As well as winning numerous awards and scholarships at University, Clayton was awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors Best First Book Award at the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards for \u00bbWulf\u00ab. His second novel, this time with a contemporary setting, is currently underway, and further explores Clayton\u2019s concerns with the nature of story-telling and the play between metaphor and reality. He lives in Wellington.<\/p>\n
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