Where the Rekohu Bone Sings

Description

From the Chatham Islands/ Rekohu to London, from 1835 to the 21st century, this quietly powerful and compelling novel confronts the complexity of being Moriori, Maori and Pakeha. In the 1880s, Mere yearns for independence. Iraia wants the same but, as the descendant of a slave, such things are hardly conceivable. One summer, they notice their friendship has changed, but if they are ever to experience freedom they will need to leave their home in the Queen Charlotte Sounds. A hundred years later, Lula and Bigs are born. The birth is literally one in a million, as their mother, Tui, likes to say. When Tui dies, they learn there is much she kept secret and they, too, will need to travel beyond their world, to an island they barely knew existed. Neither Mere and Iraia nor Lula and Bigs are aware that someone else is part of their journeys. He does not watch over them so much as through them, feeling their loss and confusion as if it were his own.

Where the Rekohu Bone Sings is Tina Makereti's first novel. It won the 2014 Nga Kupu Ora Maori Book Awards Fiction Prize. Her short story collection, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa, also won the Nga Kupu Ora Maori Book Awards Fiction Prize in 2011. In 2009 she was the recipient of the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing (non-fiction), and in the same year received the Pikihuia Award for Best Short Story Written in English. In October 2012 Makereti was Writer in Residence at the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, and in 2013 she was Curator-at-Large for the New Zealand Film Archive. Makereti has a PhD in Creative Writing from Victoria University, and teaches creative writing and English at Massey and Victoria Universities. She is of Ngati Tuwharetoa, Te Ati Awa, Ngati Maniapoto, Pakeha and, in all probability, Moriori descent. She now lives on the Kapiti Coast with her partner, two daughters and unruly dog. * Winner of the Nga Kupu Ora Fiction Award 2011 for Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa and again in 2014 for Where the Rekohu Bone Sings * Winner of the non-fiction prize of the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing 2009 * Pikihuia Award for Best Short Story in English 2009 * Listed in The NZ Listener's 100 Best Books, and Sunday Star Times Best Books of 2010