Jeffrey Paparoa Holman grew up in Blackball and worked in his youth as the postie in Runanga. He is now an acclaimed poet and author based in Christchurch.
His latest book, Lily, Oh Lily is his fourth work of non-fiction and his attempt to understand the postwar world of his childhood.
The book is based on his search for answers to a family mystery.
Piecing together shreds of family stories, both told and untold, with administrative records, old address books, death certificates, flags stolen from embassies, and other clues, Jeffrey Holman attempts to answer the question as to why and how his descendants came to be caught up in Hitler's war in Nazi .Germany.
