Forbidden Cities
  • Published: 29 September 2008
  • ISBN: 9780143009146
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 276
  • RRP: $24.95

Forbidden Cities

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The NZ Herald called this impressive book 'One of the best short story collections written by a New Zealander in years.'

This powerful short story collection by Paula Morris roams the globe and ranges widely in subject matter.

From Sunset Boulevard to the beaches of Auckland, from the Bund in Shanghai to the banks of the Danube, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Hammersmith Flyover, from post-Katrina New Orleans to Fire Island . . . the stories of Forbidden Cities explore places of escape, transgression, ambition, delusions, and desire.
  • Published: 29 September 2008
  • ISBN: 9780143009146
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 276
  • RRP: $24.95
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About the author

Paula Morris

Paula Morris, of Ngati Wai and English descent, was born in Auckland. Her first novel, Queen of Beauty (2002), won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book of Fiction at the 2003 Montana Book Awards and the Adam Foundation Prize. She has published three other novels, Hibiscus Coast (2005), Trendy But Casual (2007) and Rangatira (2011), which was the winner of the Fiction Award at the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards and the Nga Kupu Ora Maori Book Awards. She has also published the short-story collection Forbidden Cities (2008), edited The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories (2009) and has published three young adult novels in the United States.

Paula holds degrees from four universities, including the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has worked in London and New York, first as a publicist and marketing executive in the record business, and later as a branding consultant and advertising copywriter. Since 2003 she has taught creative writing at universities in the US, the UK and currently at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

portrait photo of Paula Morris

Also by Paula Morris

False River
New Zealand Girl: Hene and the Burning Harbour
Rangatira
Hibiscus Coast
Trendy But Casual
Queen of Beauty
See all

Praise for Forbidden Cities

[Her work] slips effortlessly and naturally across time zones and hemispheres, criss-crossing themes of race and culture with a cool, knowing style and claiming an ethnic territory that’s all her own.

Kirsty Gunn

Betrayal, unsatisfactory sex, the unbridgeable distances between people (even – perhaps especially – between members of the same family), these are the themes that tie this impressive collection together … Morris knows what she is doing. She doesn’t waste time explaining. The reader often has to wait till well into the story before learning where it is set, and who the characters are in relation to one another. This is not mystification for its own sake, but rather a consummate craftsperson operating at the top of her game.

Elspeth Sandys, New Zealand Books

One of the best short story collections written by a New Zealander in years … These stories are fresh, engaging, and tinged with all those raw emotions that make for excellent fiction.

New Zealand Herald

Forbidden Cities establishes her as one of those rare writers who can tackle both long and short fiction successfully.

Otago Daily Times