Brasch Charles

Charles Brasch 1909 -1973

Charles Brasch.

Charles Brasch is an important literary figure in New Zealand. He gets a listing here, for during his residence out of New Zealand he spent three seasons in the 1930s working at the famous Egyptian archaeological site of Tel el Amarna. The excavations of the time were being carried out by the Egypt Exploration Society under the direction of John Pendlebury.

His autobiography is: Indirections: a Memoir, 1909-1947. 1980 Oxford University Press Wellington, New York. On line

This has relatively little about Egypt, as a section was excluded to reduce the length. This was corrected by a later publication dealing with his time in Egypt.

His poetry - see Poems - has archaeological references.

During the Second World War he worked as a translator at Bletchley Park. Late in the war he lived in the famous Isokon building in Lawn Rd Hampstead. A later resident was prehistorian Gordon Childe. When considering his post-war career he once thought of being editor of the Journal of the Polynesian Society. Resident in Dunedin he was on the board of the Otago Museum.

Brasch has a Dictionary of New Zealand Biography listing DONZB.

References