Kataraina

The much-awaited follow-up to the award-winning international bestseller Aue.

In Aue, eight-year-old Arama was taken by his brother, Taukiri, to live with Kat and Stu at the farm in Kaikoura, setting in motion the ensuing tragedy, which resulted in Stu’s death. Aunty Kat was at the centre of events, but, silenced by abuse, her voice was absent from the story.

In Kataraina, Kat and her whanau take over the telling. As one, the family recounts her childhood and the time when she first began to feel the greenness of the swamp in her veins — the swamp that holds her tears and the tears of generations of tipuna; the swamp on the land owned by Stu that has been growing since the day the girl shot the man.

Unflinching in its portrayal of intergenerational trauma and violence, tender in its harnessing of the hope that future generations represent, Kataraina is a stunning novel that confirms Becky Manawatu as one of the most talented and powerful writers working in Aotearoa New Zealand today.

‘Kataraina is beautifully penned; interspersed with Maori language and Aotearoa/New Zealand colloquialisms … Manawatu writes to reclaim women's stories and to pay tribute to those who came before her. She tackles grief, domestic violence, intergenerational trauma, and colonisation with a sharp, compassionate eye.’ – The Big Issue