Editions

Potiki

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780241413562

  • Length: 192  Pages

  • RRP: £8.99

Potiki

'Provocative, compassionate and beautiful' - Joy Harjo, US Poet Laureate

WINNER OF THE 1987 NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARD; WINNER OF THE 2008 NEUSTADT INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

A moving story of a Maori community's fight for survival, from one of New Zealand's most prominent and celebrated authors

On the remote coast of New Zealand, at the curve that binds the land and the sea, a small Maori community live, work, fish, play and tell stories of their ancestors. But something is changing. The prophet child toko can sense it. Men are coming, with dollars and big plans to develop the area for tourism. As their ancestral land becomes threatened, the people must unite in a battle for survival.

Weaving together myth and memory, Patricia Grace's prize-winning novel is a spellbinding portrait of a defiant community determined to protect their way of life at any cost.

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780241413562

  • Length: 192  Pages

  • RRP: £8.99

Reviews

  • A searching examination of human nature [by] a canonical figure in postcolonial and Maori literature . . . a timely arrival, praising the strength and the resilience of the human spirit whilst capturing, in moments of crystallising clarity, the tragic masochism of its pain and sorrow.

    Arts Desk

More in this Series

View all View all
View all View all

About the Author

Patricia Grace

Patricia Grace is one of New Zealand's most prominent and celebrated authors and a figurehead of modern Indigenous literature. She garnered initial acclaim in the 1970s with her collection of short stories entitled Waiariki (1975) - the first published book by a Maori woman. She has published six novels and seven short story collections, as well as a number of books for children and a work of non-fiction. She won the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction for Potiki in 1987, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2001 with Dogside Story, which also won the 2001 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Fiction Prize. In 2008 she won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Patricia Grace

Read more

/content/dam/prh/articles/adults/2021/february/Main-Classics to Transport-1800x1200.jpg

Features

The best Modern Classics to transport you around the world

Fancy a trip? Henry Eliot, host of new podcast On the Road with Penguin Classics, lists his favourite reads to take you away, from Japan and Accra to the island coasts of New Zealand.

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience. For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience.

For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions. See More.

Analytics

Analytics cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. See More.

Preferences & Features

Preference and Feature cookies allow our website to remember choices you make, such as your language preferences and any customisations you make to pages on our website during your visit. See More.

Targeting / Advertising

Targeting cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They perform functions like preventing the same content from reappearing, ensuring ads are displayed and, in some cases, selecting content based on your interests. See More.