16 Jun 2019

Margot Schwass remembers the colourful Greville Texidor

From Standing Room Only, 2:25 pm on 16 June 2019

Frank Sargeson is remembered not only for his writing but also for the other writers he mentored, including Janet Frame. One of the most colourful members of his circle in the 1940s was refugee Greville Texidor. Her backstory included being part of the Bloomsbury set in the UK, as well as a beauty queen, a chorus girl, a prison inmate and an anarchist heavily involved in the Spanish Civil War. Greville came to New Zealand in 1940 but never liked it here and left eight years later, after writing a novella, an unfinished novel and a series of short stories. Her work was all but forgotten until it was published in a collection called In Fifteen Minutes You Can Say A Lot, back in 1987. Now writer and editor Margot Schwass has taken a deep dive into Greville's life and writing in her book, All the Juicy Pastures. Margot tells Lynn Freeman that Greville and her German husband Werner came to New Zealand after spending time in English prisons.