The Greening of the Spring: In search of Otto

Dunedin novelist Paddy Richardson at the start of her Randell Cottage Residency, spoke to the Friends in conjunction with the Randell Cottage Writers Trust. Paddy is the author of seven novels and two collections of short stories.

Paddy’s recent novel, “Through the Lonesome Dark” (Upstart Press, 2017), is set in World War I, and she plans to use her Residency in Wellington to continue work on a sequel, set in New Zealand during WWI, for which she intends to carry out research in the Turnbull Library. Her project tells the story of a fictional young mining activist Otto Bader who is arrested as an ‘enemy alien’ and then incarcerated on Somes Island along with others of Austrian and German origins.