Category Archives: Uncategorized

Auē! – a cry of distress – calling out throughout this extraordinary novel of fear and violence, of families torn apart and people trying to find connection and safety. Taukiri leaves his brother Ārama with Aunty Kat on her farm … Continue reading →

The burning river is a great piece of dystopian fiction, set in an Aotearoa that has been devastated by global warming and pollution. Van, Hana and her daughter Kahu set out on a quest to try and bargain for place … Continue reading →

After reading some works you just see the world differently, maybe for a moment, maybe a few hours or days, maybe permanently. Pūrākau was such a work for me.  Pūrākau is a collection of contemporary writings relating to Māori foundation … Continue reading →

The death of a brilliant young woman, a circus in town, high stakes university research, a monster of a boss, a critical Mum and a persistent suitor – just some of the happenings in Sam Shephard’s second outing, this time … Continue reading →

WELCOME TO MY SECOND POST IN THE NGAIO MARSH AWARDS BLOG TOUR 2018 A man’s body is discovered in the floating basin; a murky tidal estuary on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Ru Clements, a local detective, … Continue reading →

“And it’s like: you know on kind of a formal level that there’s laws, but then when you’re actually on the street and see it through their eyes, you realise it’s just dog-eat-dog, same as everything else” – even the … Continue reading →

A gentleman with an alcohol problem is in Sea View Lunatic Asylum on the hills above the Hokitika goldfields.  He has been making a nuisance of himself in Hokitika and other gold mining areas, trying to gather information about the … Continue reading →

Catherine Chidgey recorded and transcribed a year of her life, and using just those found words – from conversations, from the Internet, from TV and movies – wrote The beat of the pendulum.   The title comes from a Proust quote, … Continue reading →

Settlers’ Creek develops in unexpected ways, venturing into extremely emotional terrain as it explores the importance of a sense of place and status. Box Saxton suffers a cataclysmic fall in socio-economic status with a recent economic recession, then suffers the … Continue reading →