A failed bid to repatriate the remains of New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield was ‘‘beyond ridiculous’’ and didn’t have a shred of evidence to support it, a leading scholar says.
Mansfield died in France of tuberculosis in 1923. She was 34.
Last week, Wellington Mayor Justin Lester confirmed he had written a letter to authorities in Avon backing a request by Wellington’s Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society to exhume Mansfield’s body and have it returned to New Zealand.
British Mansfield biographer and Katherine Mansfield Society chairwoman Gerri Kimber said yesterday members of the organisation were perplexed.
‘‘There isn’t a valid reason. Nowhere in any of her letters, in any of her journals or personal writing does she say ’I’m definitely going to go back to New Zealand to die’.
"She couldn’t wait to leave New Zealand,’’ Dr Kimber said.
Mansfield's current burial location was meaningful to Mansfield, and she had deliberately gone there when she found out she was dying of tuberculosis, Dr Kimber said.
In a statement, the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society said it would not take the matter further.
