The Bone People

Powerful and visionary Keri Hulme has written the great New Zealand novel of our times. The Bone People is the story of Kerewin a despairing part-Maori artist who is convinced that her solitary life is the only way to face the world. Her cocoon is rudely blown away by the sudden arrival during a rainstorm of Simon a mute six-year-old whose past seems to hold some terrible trauma. In his wake comes his foster-father Joe a Maori factory worker with a nasty temper. The narrative unravels to reveal the truths that lie behind these three characters and in so doing displays itself as a huge ambitious work that tackles the clash between Maori and European characters in beautiful prose of a heartrending poignancy.