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Wellington based fiction writer, poet, and critic Ian Wedde has been awarded the 2005 Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship.
Each year, the fellowship enables a New Zealand writer to work at the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, France, where Katherine Mansfield lived and wrote.
"This is a tremendous privilege and the timing is great -- I've embarked on a journey to write a book about what home is, and the best way to do that is to go somewhere else," Wedde said in a statement after tonight's announcement.
He plans to use the fellowship to work on a travel book exploring the question "Where are we when we're at home?" and to complete the final draft of his Chinese Opera novel.
Wedde has previously won the Burns Fellowship award, the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry, and the Book Award for Fiction for his first novel Dick Seddon's Great Dive.
Previous Katherine Mansfield Fellowship recipients include Maurice Gee, Lloyd Jones, Witi Ihimaera, Roger Hall, Maurice Shadbolt and the 2004 Fellow, Bill Manhire.
- NZPA
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