Published in 2019
328 pages
Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu) was born in Nelson in 1982, raised in Waimangaroa and has returned there to live with her family. She worked as a reporter for The News in Westport. Becky’s short story ‘Abalone’ was long-listed for the 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, her essay ‘Mothers Day’ has been selected for the Landfall anthology Strong Words. Auē is her first novel & it won both the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction and the Hubert Church Prize for best first book of fiction at the 2020 Ockham Book Awards.
What is this book about?
Taukiri was born into sorrow. Auē can be heard in the sound of the sea he loves and hates, and in the music he draws out of the guitar that was his father’s. It spills out of the gang violence that killed his father and sent his mother into hiding, and the shame he feels about abandoning his eight-year-old brother to a violent home.
But Ārama is braver than he looks, and he has a friend and his friend has a dog, and the three of them together might just be strong enough to turn back the tide of sorrow. As long as there’s aroha to give and stories to tell and a good supply of plasters.
Here is a novel that is both raw and sublime, a compelling new voice in New Zealand fiction.
