Kiwi author explores mental health care through Walking to Africa: a story told in poetry
MEDIA RELEASE
Newsflash!
Like Minds media grant recipient Jessica Le Bas' book Walking to Africa has made it into several Best of 2009 book lists: NZ Listener's Top 100; the Dominion Post's Your Weekend list, Waikato Times, Christchurch Press and the NZ herald. It has also been referenced on the best reads of the year for the Listener and the NZ Herald's Canvas Magazine.
6 October
Friday 9 October marks the launch of a new and unique collection of poetry for award-winning New Zealand author, Jessica Le Bas.
Called Walking to Africa, the story is told through a mother's eyes as she follows her young daughter's descent into severe depression, through the strange, new and sometimes frightening world of mental health care.
We meet specialists A through F, other kids, friends who want to help, an angel/nurse and the Ghostman - alongside therapies and cures, strategies and rites. We see glimpses of the realities, the fragility, the unknowing and unknown.
Jessica says, "Walking to Africa emerged as a way of exploring the strange mental-health-care planet our family had arrived on.
"Lost, I wanted directions, answers, remedies and ways of understanding what was going on. I wanted a map that showed the terrain - the way in and the way out."
Ultimately, Jessica says there are a myriad ways of managing and living with mental illness, but "it is a complex field that can feel scary for families with no experience of mental illness in their lives.
"When your child becomes ill you consider all the medical reasons," Jessica says. "Mental illness was not something I knew about. Depression can be a horrible experience, and for a child not responding to medication it is an unimaginable place, for everyone who loves them."
Judi Clements, Mental Health Foundation Chief Executive, says Jessica's collection is a compelling read.
"It evokes a range of reactions including sadness, smiles and anger," she says, "and is a contribution to the growing reservoir of understanding, which we hope will wash away the remains of discrimination and misunderstanding that for so long have bedevilled experiences of mental distress."
Denise L'Estrange-Corbet, founder of fashion label World, who also previewed the collection, says, "The poetry is not flowery, but blunt, honest, descriptive, funny and immensely personal and had me totally immersed and absorbed from start to finish. It's beautifully written. I loved it!"
Author Jessica Le Bas, has been writing and publishing short fiction and poetry for many years. She has won several awards for her poetry including the 2008 NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for the Best First Book of Poetry for her first collection of poems, Incognito (Auckland University Press, 2007).
Jessica will be appearing at The Women's Bookshop's Litera-tea in Auckland on Sunday 12 October.
Walking to Africa is being published by Auckland University Press. The writing of the collection was funded by a 2007 NZ Mental Health Media Grant and publication was assisted by the Mental Health Foundation and the Estate of Marcia Hill. Read more.
For more information, images or an interview:
Christine O'Brien
Marketing Manager
Auckland University Press
Phoine: (09) 373 7528 email: c.obrien "at" auckland.ac.nz
Cate Hennessy
Ph: (09) 636 56 24
Mob: 021 687 426
email: info "at" mediagrants.co.nz
