Either Side The Horizon

Stephen Oliver

Stephen has been unjustly neglected for years by the New Zealand literary powers and one has to wonder why. None of his works has appeared in any of the major New Zealand anthologies in spite of a formidable oeuvre that encompasses more than twenty years of uncompromising effort.

Stephen is able to write gentle lyrics and tough satire though more recently he has revealed a new direction in his writing which might yet take us where there will be (not yet anyway) no easy tags to apply to his work.

As for his work to date, he has never relented in his attacks. His satirical work, of which there is a fair representation in Either Side The Horizon, lampoons not so much political figures as their methods and the institutional hypocrisy they have inherited. His favourite targets are those who say one thing while doing another, be they oil lords controlling the happiness and destinies of millions of families, or those appointed by an elite to govern the standards of passionless culture.

Either Side The Horizon is a fine example of Oliver's nerve, his critical eye and his occasionally combative stance.