In Janet Frame’s seventh novel, Godfrey Rainbird, a thirty-year-old tourist clerk, lives a quiet life in the coastal suburb of Andersons Bay, Dunedin, inhabiting “the last house facing the harbour” (8) with his wife and young children. Originally from London, Godfrey “was well qualified to be accepted as an assisted immigrant to New Zealand” (3). He fulfils the nation’s official criteria for entry as a “European of British birth, twenty, single, not a convicted criminal, not suffering from physical or mental illness, politically placid” and, most importantly of all, because he is “beardless” (3). As a white, working member of the Anglosphere, Godfrey can marry a local woman, start a family, and permanently settle in his new home, “a land of milk butter wool and honey; annual holidays; the beach at his front door” (11).
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Citation: Parker, Emma. "The Rainbirds". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 June 2025 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7518, accessed 13 December 2025.]
