Barry Crump

Barry Crump (1935 - 1996) was a New Zealand author of semi-autobiographical comic novels based on his image as a rugged outdoors man. Taken together his novels have sold more than a million copies domestically, equating to one book sold for every four New Zealanders.

Related Topics:
1935 - 1996 - New Zealand - Autobiographical

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Born in Papatoetoe, Auckland, Crump worked for many years as a government deer-culler in areas of New Zealand native forest (termed bush). He collected his experiences in his first novel A Good Keen Man in 1960. This novel became one of the most popular in New Zealand history, and Crump's success continued with the more fictional Hang on a Minute Mate (1961), One of Us (1962), There and Back (1963), Gulf (1964), A Good Keen Girl (1970), Bastards I Have Met (1971), and others, which capitalized on the appeal of his good-natured itinerant self-sufficient characters and idiomatic 'blokey' writing style.

Related Topics:
Papatoetoe - Auckland - Deer - Forest - Bush - Self-sufficient

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Crump travelled throughout Australia (where he hunted crocodiles), Europe, Turkey, and India, the result of which was his converstion to the Bahá'í Faith. He has been married five times, including a one-year marriage to the poet Fleur Adcock and a longer marriage to Jean Watson, and had nine sons and no daughters.

Related Topics:
Australia - Crocodile - Europe - Turkey - India - Bahá'í Faith - Fleur Adcock - Jean Watson

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Crump was also well known for appearing in a series of acclaimed New Zealand television advertisements for Toyota's four-wheel drive cars, which relied on his image as a stalwart 'bushman'.

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He was awarded an MBE for services to literature in 1994, and died in 1996.

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