Category: Te reo Māori

One Day a Taniwha–book review

One Day a Taniwha, by Tīhema Baker

I was in the car listening to Pip Adam’s conversation with Tīhema Baker on Better off Read, Episode 162 and he sounded so brilliant I had to make a stop to buy the book. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a hard-hitting novel and very good, though I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone (read on…)

Our narrator of One Day a Taniwha, Hepa, has a terrific literary voice. He had me exhausted, tearful, commiserative, frustrated, angry, all of those both with him and for him. Baker sure knows how to tuck you under the wing of his character and take you along for the emotional ride, all told like a mate spilling the heartfelt beans into your compassionate ear. He’s going through shit, but trusts that you’ll be there for him. He’s not ranting into the void. He’s talking to you.

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The Other Catherine – book review

The Other Catherine, by Lauren Keenan

Lauren Keenan (Te Ātiawa ki Taranaki) is making a name for herself writing strong women’s stories of our past told from alternating Māori and Pakeha viewpoints. Both The Other Catherine and her previous novel, The Space Between, follow this device. It soon becomes clear that, though the lives of these women from the outside may appear very different, their lived experiences have distinct similarities. They struggle, love and fear, find joy in small things, have unfulfilled desires and hope for a better future. Throw these experiences into a colonial context: women’s lack of agency and political power, poor sanitation and health, hard work and lives dependent on the mercy of men, and you’ll find a compelling story.

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The Mires – book review

The Mires, by Tina Makareti

I always enjoy Tina Makareti’s descriptive writing and here she gives us a real undercurrent of murky rising damp. A swamp pervades this story, running between things and below the surface, always slightly unnerving. Always out, and back, the collective breathing of all the waters flowing through all the channels of the earth. I had a sense of a whole system of communication and connection all around that I couldn’t see. I wasn’t sure it meant me well. This is an unsettling read.

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Pātea Boys – Book review

Pātea Boys, Ngāti Pātea, by Airana Ngarewa

I want to give this book to all the manu-ing bros and cuzzies who are living overseas to remind them what home feels like on the skin. Listen to me, I’m not even Māori. Airana Ngarewa just has that effect on me.

These short stories in Pātea Boys (Ngāti Pātea in the te reo version) are mostly funny yarns, bookmarked by vaping aunties, drenched with boys leaping into water for the sheer hell of it. Airana makes Pātea sound like the best place to spend a childhood, as timelessly cool as its number one hit: Poi E which has taken up residence on loop in my head and threatening to break through at inappropriate moments (actually, perhaps no moment is inappropriate for Poi E). There’s a tint of rose-coloured nostalgia cloaking the old town: harmless fun, boys besting each other: the meanest manu, the fastest race, the most near-death experiences, best prank. But it’s not all a laugh. We go back to a young girl running light-footed through forest in the dark, an ancestor of these kids, one who slips past the colonial forces to light a signal fire. There’s a sentient historic waka sunk on the river bank finally rescued from the mud after over a century by a couple of idiotic, bantering kids. Life is not all dive bombs and kai, but these are the things remembered.

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