Amelia Batistich Explained

Amelia Batistich
Birth Name:Amelia Barbarich
Birth Date:11 March 1915
Birth Place:Dargaville, New Zealand
Death Place:New Zealand
Occupation:Fiction writer

Amelia Batistich (née Barbarich; 11 March 1915 – 21 August 2004) was a New Zealand fiction writer of Croatian descent.

Life

Batistich was born in Dargaville to John Barbarich and Milka Matutinovich, settlers from Dalmatia.[1] [2] Her parents ran a boarding house which attracted new migrants, including labourers heading for Northland's gumfields for work. She was educated by the Sisters of St Joseph and the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions.[3]

The family moved to Auckland when Batistich was 11. Her father worked at a quarry there with Dalmatian stonemasons, and she was thus again surrounded by Dalmatian people.

In the 1940s, aged about 44, she began to write poems and stories about her family and community, and the hardships faced by early settlers. These were initially published in The Listener magazine and the New Zealand School Journal, a magazine for New Zealand school children. She also wrote about other ethnic minorities in New Zealand, such as Chinese in the Otago gold rush.

In 1981, Batistich's novel Pjevaj Vilo u Planini won first prize in an international competition in the former Yugoslavia for migrant writers, and she was invited to visit Croatia by the Croatian Writers' Guild.

In the 1997 Queen's Birthday Honours, Batistich was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for community service.[4] She has been credited with leading the way for other ethnic groups, such as Māori, to also express their outlook on the community they were living in.[5]

Publications

Collections of short stories

Novels

Memoirs

Notes and References

  1. Book: The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Robinson. Roger . Oxford University Press. 1998. 0 19 558348 5. Auckland. 42–43.
  2. News: Obituary: Amelia Batistich. 20 August 2004. New Zealand Herald. 1170-0777. 30 April 2016.
  3. Web site: Interview with Amelia Batistich. my.christchurchcitylibraries.com. 30 April 2016.
  4. Web site: Queen's Birthday honours list 1997. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet . 16 July 2020.
  5. Web site: Migrant Women's Writing in New Zealand: Amelia Batistich's Three-Dimensional World, Nina Nola . 30 April 2016 . 1 June 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160601081337/https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-16490451/migrant-women-s-writing-in-new-zealand-amelia-batistich-s . dead .