Potiki
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
'Provocative, compassionate and beautiful' - Joy Harjo, US Poet Laureate
WINNER OF THE 1987 NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARD; WINNER OF THE 2008 NEUSTADT INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
A moving story of a Maori community's fight for survival, from one of New Zealand's most prominent and celebrated authors
On the remote coast of New Zealand, at the curve that binds the land and the sea, a small Maori community live, work, fish, play and tell stories of their ancestors. But something is changing. The prophet child toko can sense it. Men are coming, with dollars and big plans to develop the area for tourism. As their ancestral land becomes threatened, the people must unite in a battle for survival.
Weaving together myth and memory, Patricia Grace's prize-winning novel is a spellbinding portrait of a defiant community determined to protect their way of life at any cost.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Roimata Kararaina, her husband and their four children live peacefully in a tribal community along the unspoiled coast of New Zealand. But developers have big plans for the areatourist facilities, roads and modernizationand they offer Roimata's Maori people huge sums of money for its lands. When the community refuses to sell, fearing the destruction of its environment and sacred traditions, the developers employ sinister means to change its mind, and the Maori find themselves united as never before as they battle for survival. Grace's characters are beautifully sketched, and their struggles evoke sympathy. The New Zealand author tells a vivid and mesmerizing story as she blends tribal myth with political realities and offers shrewd insights into human nature. The unique book is also full of exotic symbolism and language, but one wishes that Grace had provided a glossary of the numerous Maori words.
