User:Chocmilk03/Roger Robinson (academic)

Roger Derek Robinson (born 1939) is a British-born New Zealand academic, essayist, editor, runner, sportswriter and sports commentator. He is an emeritus professor at Victoria University of Wellington.

Life and literary career
Robinson was born in Sutton Coldfield in 1939, and grew up in London. He earned a master's degree and PhD from the University of Cambridge, and moved to New Zealand in 1968, where he became a lecturer at the University of Canterbury and then a professor of English at Victoria University. He served as dean and vice-chancellor of the university during his tenure. For many years, from the 1980s onwards, he divided his time between New Zealand and the United States, holding visiting academic positions at New York University and the Newberry Library in Chicago. In 1981 he founded the first academic journal for New Zealand literature, the Journal of New Zealand Literature, and its first issue was published in 1983.

Together with Nelson Wattie, Robinson edited The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature (1998), and himself contributed over 300 articles. In 2003 he edited Robert Louis Stevenson: His Best Pacific Writings which was a finalist for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2004. His work has been published in Landfall, The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry (1996) and Readings in Pacific Literature (1993). He has written two books about running, including Running in Literature (2003) about the treatment of running in literature. He was the scriptwriter for running documentary Marathon: A Hero's Journey (Cultural Horizons, 1990). In 2001 he was listed as an outstanding American sportswriter in The Best American Sports Writing.

In 2018 he published When Running Made History, a non-fiction work about the history of running. In a review for Outside, Amby Burfoot called it "one of the best running books ever written—if not the very best". Geoff Watson in the New Zealand Review of Books praised Robinson's tracing of the development of running as a sport. He said the book "has been widely and rightfully acclaimed [and] is among the most readable and rewarding works of sports history ever published".

Sporting career and personal life
As a nine-year-old Robinson saw Emil Zátopek win the 10,000m event at the 1948 Summer Olympics, which inspired him to start running seriously. He began competing in running events for England in 1966, and would later compete for New Zealand internationally until 1995. In the 1980s, Robinson won his Masters age category at both the Boston Marathon and New York City Marathon. He has acted as an announcer or commentator for sporting events, including notably the 10,000m race at the 1974 Commonwealth Games, won by Dick Tayler, and the 1981 New York City Marathon.

In 1983, Robinson met runner and author Kathrine Switzer while speaking at a running national championship in New Zealand. They married in 1987. Robinson has two children from a previous marriage. He has continued running into his 80s following two knee replacements.

As editor

 * The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (Pan Classics, 1976) (includes introduction and notes)
 * Poems for the Eighties (Wai-te-ata Press, 1979)
 * Katherine Mansfield: In from the Margin (Louisianan State University Press, 1994)
 * The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature (Oxford University Press, 1998), with Nelson Wattie
 * Writing Wellington: Twenty Years of Victoria University Writing Fellows (Victoria University Press, 1999)
 * Anno Domini 2000: or Woman's Destiny by Julius Vogel (Exisle, 2000, University of Hawaii Press, 2002) (includes introduction)
 * The God Boy by Ian Cross (Penguin Modern Classics, 2003) (includes introduction)
 * Robert Louis Stevenson: His Best Pacific Writings (Streamline & Bess Press, 2003)

Essays

 * Introduction to Pocket Collected Poems by Alistair Te Ariki Campbell (Hazard Press, 1996)
 * Essay on Thomas Hardy in The Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy (OUP, 2000)

Non-fiction

 * Landscapes (Art Society Press, 1963)
 * Victoriana (Art Society Press, 1963, revised ed. 1967)
 * Heroes and Sparrows: a Celebration of Running (Southwester, 1986)
 * A Hero's Journey (Cultural Horizons, 1990) (documentary script)
 * The Story of Hong Gildong (Wai-te-ata Press, 1995)
 * Running in Literature (Breakaway Books, 2003)
 * When Running Made History (Syracuse University Press, 2018)