Nicolas Kurtovitch

NICOLAS KURTOVITCH – Randell Cottage writer-in-residence

From October 2007 to February 2008, New Caledonian writer Nicolas Kurtovitch is the French writer-in-residence at Randell Cottage in Wellington.

The Randell Cottage Writers Residency was created in 2001 to host French and New Zealand laureates alternately. The Randell Cottage Trust works in partnership with the Embassy of France, the New Zealand-France Friendship Fund and Creative New Zealand to provide a six month residency each year to a French and New Zealand writer respectively. During his/her residency, the successful candidate works on an approved project.

Peter Wells and Nadine Ribault were the first laureates in 2002. Tim Corballis and Charles Juliet followed in 2003, Michael Harlow and Pierre Furlan in 2004, Renée and Dominique Mainard in 2005, and Beryl Fletcher and Annie Saumont in 2006. Whiti Hereaka is in residence for the first six months of 2007.

The Randell Cottage Creative New Zealand Writers Residency is the first dedicated writers’ Residency in Wellington and the first to be offered to international writers in the Southern Hemisphere. As such it represents an exciting development for the city as well as for the nation as a whole.

The Residency is the result of a long-standing desire to create a counterpart to the very prestigious Katherine Mansfield Fellowship. This fellowship has enabled most of the great names of New Zealand literature to spend time writing at the residency in Menton, France, in the same villa where Katherine Mansfield convalesced in the 1920s.

Nicolas Kurtovitch: Biography

Nicolas Kurtovitch was born in Nouméa in 1955. His mother’s family (who include Jean Taragnat, one of the first Frenchmen to set foot in New Caledonia) came to the country in1843. His father emigrated from Sarajevo in 1945.

He was educated in New Caledonia and spent a couple of years travelling in New Zealand and Australia before further study at the University of Aix-en-Provence from 1977 to 1980. After a period teaching at a high school on Lifou, he moved to Do Kamo High School in Nouméa, a protestant institution which works towards developing the full potential of its Melanesian students. He is currently the school’s principal.

His first collection of poetry, Sloboda, appeared in 1973. He has published regularly since then, particularly poetry and short stories. In 1999, he co-authored with Kanak writer Dewe Gorode a book of poetry entitled Dire le vrai, a dialogue both affirming difference and demonstrating the possibilities of a shared voice.

Later in his career he started writing for the theatre, with Le Sentier Kaaweny, first staged for the opening of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in 1998, and Kalachakra, for the Equinox Festival in Nouméa in 1999. A third play, Les Dieux sont borgnes, co-authored with Kanak playwright Pierre Gope was staged at the Avignon Festival in 2003. La Commande, published in 2004, has not yet been staged.

All his work reveals the importance of place: spaces filled with the sound of people’s voices, but also their silences, shared or not, and the questions inspired in each of us by the presence of others.

He seeks to strip language of pretence and ostentation, and to make his writing an act of existence and resistance, exploring a sense of deeply-felt belonging while at the same time accepting exile.

A follower of aikido and an avid reader of Japanese poetry, he holds the firm conviction that art is the act of a human being who seeks simply to stand firm in the awareness of solitude and exile, and absolute freedom.

A member of the Association des Écrivains de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (Association of New Caledonian Writers) and of the Société des Gens de Lettres (Writers’ Society), Nicolas Kurtovitch’s work is read and studied in several South Pacific universities. In 2000 he took part in the Waka Conference in Wellington on Pacific identities. In 2005, along with Catherine Laurent, he founded the Centre Géopoétique de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (Geopoetic Centre of New Caledonia).

Some of his recent poems will appear in the October issue of Poetry New Zealand.

Nicolas Kurtovitch: Bibliography

• Sloboda (poèmes) Ed  de l’auteur: Nouméa, 1973 (out of print)
• Seulement des mots (récit) Ed  de l’auteur: Aix-en-Provence, 1977 (out of print)
• Vision d’insulaire (poèmes) Ed St-Germain-des-Prés: Paris, 1983
• Souffle de la nuit (poèmes) Ed St-Germain-des-Prés: Paris, 1985 (out of print)
• L’Arme qui me fera vaincre (poèmes) Ed Vent du Sud: Nouméa, 1988 (out of print)
• Forêt, Terre et Tabac (nouvelles) Ed du Niaouli: Nouméa, 1993
• Homme Montagne (poèmes) Ed Guy Chambelland: Paris, 1993 (out of print)
• Lieux (nouvelles) Ed Grain de Sable: Nouméa, 1994 (out of print)
• Assis dans la barque (poèmes) Ed Grain de Sable: Nouméa, 1994
• Totem (nouvelles) Ed Grain de Sable: Nouméa, 1997
• Le Sentier Kaawenya (théâtre) Ed Grain de Sable: Nouméa, 1998
• Avec le masque (poèmes) Ed Guy Chambelland: Paris, 1998
• Dire le vrai / To tell the truth Ed. Bilingue de 18 poèmes avec Déwé Gorodé, English trans. Raylene Ramsay and Brian McKay. Ed Grain de Sable: Nouméa, 1999 
• On marchera le long du mur (poèmes) Ed Galerie Racine: Paris, 2001
• Poème de la solitude et de l’exil (poèmes) Ed Asso. Kalachakra: Nouméa, 2001
• Ode aux Pauvres (poèmes) Ed Asso. Kalachakra: Nouméa, 2002
• Autour Uluru (poèmes) Photos by Nicolas  Kurtovitch. Ed Galerie Racine: Paris, 2002
• Les Dieux sont borgnes (théâtre) Co-written with Pierre Gope. Ed Grain de Sable: Nouméa, 2002
• Le Piéton du dharma (poèmes) Ed Grain de Sable: Nouméa 2003 (Winner, Poetry Prize, 5th Salon du livre Insulaire de Ouessant)
• La Commande (théâtre) Ed Traversées: Nouméa, 2005
• Le Dit du cafard taoiste (poèmes) Ed Asso Kalachakra: Nouméa, 2005
• Good Night Friend (roman) Ed Au Vent des Îles: Pape’ete, 2006
• Lieux II (nouvelles) Ed Grain de Sable: Nouméa, 2007

Nicolas Kurtovitch images