Potiki

Patricia Grace’s classic novel is a work of spellbinding power in which the myths of older times are inextricably woven into the political realities of today.

This novel is one of a dozen classics released in the Popular Penguin format to mark 50 years of publishing in New Zealand. The format reaches further back to 1935, when Allen Lane founded Penguin Books with a clear vision- ‘We believed in the existence of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it.’

Winning the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction in 1987, Potiki follows a small coastal community threatened by developers. It is a time of fear and confusion – and growing anger. The prophet child Tokowaru-i-te-Marama shares his people’s struggles against bulldozers and fast money talk, his all-seeing eye looking forward to a strange and terrible new dawn.