The Families

‘O’Sullivan’s stories exhibit a shrewd understanding that pierces to the heart of what it means to be human. O’Sullivan can mock, satirise and laugh, but he also finds dignity in unexpected places. He is interested in the art of living, and in the borderland where truth and lies meet, both in life and in fiction itself.’
—The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature

Vincent O’Sullivan (1937–2024) was a leading New Zealand writer. He was the author of the biography of John Mulgan, Long Journey to the Border, the novels Let the River Stand, Believers to the Bright Coast and All This By Chance, and many collections of short stories and poems, plays and works of scholarship.