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 train the tragedy that unfolded. Arama’s 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, they return to 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 her tipuna; the swamp on the land owned by Stu that has been growing since the girl shot the man.

Unflinching in its portrayal of the darkness, 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.

‘The natural environment cradles the narrative and our characters as Manawatu’s effortless figurative language is intertwined with the languages of science- lush ecology, resources and knowledge sits in the deep fabric of the environment.’
-Jenna Todd, The Spinoff

‘The dialogue is outstanding. You can hear these people walking around the pages, too … There are numerous times when Manawatu ramps up the volume and intensity of her prose, electrifies it. Kataraina is the work of a major writer who could have stuck with a single storyline to create a major novel but had other things on her Mind.’
-Steve Braunias, Newsroom

‘Kataraina is less plot-driven than Aue, but has more structural and narrative depth. The two books are intrinsically intertwined in a way that strengthens them both … Kataraina gets under the hood of the culture of domestic violence, and lays it bare. This is all achieved with an ethereal vibe that seems like it ought to be incongruous with what Kat endures, but still works very well.’
-Lauren Keenan, Newsroom