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Joanne Drayton

Joanne Drayton

Joanne Drayton, Ph.D., is a New York Times bestselling author who has published seven books.

Latest from Joanne Drayton

Exploring Paul Gauguin’s Search for the ‘Primitive’ in Tahiti

Exploring Paul Gauguin’s Search for the ‘Primitive’ in Tahiti

In April 2024, I was reading Gauguin’s journal of his time in Tahiti, in preparation for a seminar I was to give to passengers on the cruise ship Ovation of the Seas. Little did I realize how transformative this selection would be.

Joanne Drayton
The Crime Writer Whose Life Began as a Teen Murderer

The Crime Writer Whose Life Began as a Teen Murderer

One of New Zealand’s most infamous murders occurred in the upright, uptight atmosphere of postwar Christchurch. Decades later, I met one of the perpetrators, a successful crime writer, and found someone trying to make meaning out of a life that had begun horribly.

Joanne Drayton
How the Queens of Crime Fiction Developed a Modern Myth

How the Queens of Crime Fiction Developed a Modern Myth

Between World War I and the Great Depression, the murder mystery was perfected by four women writers, gaining stratospheric popularity. Amid unparalleled social change, fictional detectives offered to symbolically restore traditional values, in a new myth for a rational age.

Joanne Drayton
A Māori Finds Her Royal Roots

A Māori Finds Her Royal Roots

Having a whakapapa for Māori is more than having a family tree. The names of tīpuna (ancestors), the events, the places, the mountains and rivers locate and anchor Māori on the timeline of their heritage. This is the miracle of whakapapa: when ancestors whisper secrets to their mokopuna (grandchildren).

Joanne Drayton
How a Million-Dollar Viking Chess Piece Was Found in a Kitchen Drawer

How a Million-Dollar Viking Chess Piece Was Found in a Kitchen Drawer

A knickknack from a Scottish family’s kitchen drawer turned out to be a Viking chess piece from the celebrated Lewis hoard and sold at Sotheby’s for almost $1 million — testimony to the power of the mundane to mask the simply unimaginable.

Joanne Drayton