BELIEVE IT OR NOT
A GRAVE FOR A DOLPHIN, by Alberto Derti di Pirajno; Andre Deutsch, English price 15/-. ‘THis collection is nowhere nearly as good as the same author’s A Cure for Serpents. With this point clear, it is
only fair to say that the stories have their own good qualities. It just happens that the Mayor and the Bishop, among others, so warmly filled the first book that the second collection suffers in the inevitable comparison. The stories are all bizarre, but all have the pace to bring about the necessary suspension of unbelief. The title story will recall "Opo" to New Zealand minds, for here we have a girl who trode on a dolphin. Most of the stories concern, in some way of other, animals. "A Sermon for Warthogs" is one to remember, but I think the bird in the last story will linger longest in mind. Pirajno has immense gusto, a shrewd eyé for oddity and a most artful ingenuousness. He relates the stories "just as they were told to me." And what stories they are! He is a story-teller in a tradition that his Arab friends would recog-
nise at once,
J.D.
McD.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570510.2.20.6
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 926, 10 May 1957, Page 14
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198BELIEVE IT OR NOT New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 926, 10 May 1957, Page 14
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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