Jessie Munro (born 1946) is a New Zealand writer, biographer and French teacher. She won the Book of the Year at the 1997 Montana New Zealand Book Awards for her biography of
Suzanne Aubert.
Biography
Munro was born in 1946,
and was raised on a farm south of
Clevedon.
She was educated at
Papakura High School
Papakura High School (PHS) is a co-educational state secondary school based in the Auckland suburb of Papakura in New Zealand, catering for students from Year 9 to Year 13.
The school was established in 1954 and is now made up of a diverse stu ...
, and went on to study languages—French, Latin and Italian—and history at the
University of Auckland.
After completing her bachelor's degree, she spent a few months at the
University of Perugia in Italy, before returning to New Zealand, where she married and earned a master's degree in French.
Munro won a
Commonwealth scholarship, and she and her husband both studied in Montreal. They then lived in Switzerland until 1972, when they returned to New Zealand. Munro went to teachers' college, before becoming a French teacher at the
Correspondence School, based in
Wellington.
Invited by the
Sisters of Compassion to write a biography of French nun Suzanne Aubert, she travelled to
France and
Rome to carry out research. ''The Story of Suzanne Aubert'' was later followed by ''Letters on the Go'' which collects letters written by Aubert over her long life to friends, bishops and politicians.
Awards and prizes
Jessie Munro's biography of Suzanne Aubert, ''The Story of Suzanne Aubert,'' won Book of the Year and the
New Zealand Society of Authors
The New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN New Zealand Inc.) promotes and protects the interests of New Zealand writers. It was founded as the New Zealand PEN Centre (Poets, Essays and Novelists) in 1934. It broadened its scope and became the New Ze ...
E.H. McCormick Award for Best First Book of Non-Fiction at the 1997
Montana New Zealand Book Awards
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are literary awards presented annually in New Zealand. The awards began in 1996 as the merger of two literary awards events: the New Zealand Book Awards, which ran from 1976 to 1995, and the Goodman Fielder W ...
.
Bibliography
Non fiction
* ''The Story of Suzanne Aubert'' (Auckland University Press with Bridget Williams Books, 1996)
* ''Voices of belonging: a history of Clevedon-Te Wairoa'' (Steele Roberts Aotearoa, 2016)
* (With Barbara Mansell) ''Signing into history: Clevedon women and the 1893 suffrage petition'' (Steele Roberts Aotearoa, 2020)
In translation
* (With Madeleine Le Jeune) ''Suzanne Aubert: 1835-1926: une Francaise chez les Maoris'' (Salvator, 2011)
As editor
* ''Letters on the Go: The Correspondence of Suzanne Aubert'' (Bridget Williams Books, 2009)
As contributor
* ''The French place in the Bay of Islands: essays from Pompallier's printery = Te urunga mai o te iwi Wīwī'' (Mātou Matauwhi, 2011)
See also
*
List of New Zealand literary awards
Current and historic literary awards in New Zealand include:
See also
* New Zealand literature
References
{{reflist
Literary awards
A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded liter ...
References
External links
* Profile o
Jessie Munroon Read NZ Te Pou Muramura website
* Profile of Jessi
Munroon Bridget Williams Books website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Munro, Jessie
1946 births
Living people
New Zealand women writers
University of Auckland alumni
Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu faculty
New Zealand biographers
New Zealand schoolteachers
People educated at Papakura High School
People from the Auckland Region