Auē - Becky Manawatu

Taukiri was born into sorrow. Auē can be heard in the sound of the sea he loves and hates, and in the music he draws out of the guitar that was his father’s. It spills out of the gang violence that killed his father and sent his mother into hiding, and the shame he feels about abandoning his eight-year-old brother to a violent home.

But Ārama is braver than he looks, and he has a friend and his friend has a dog, and the three of them together might just be strong enough to turn back the tide of sorrow. As long as there’s aroha to give and stories to tell and a good supply of plasters.

Here is a novel that is both raw and sublime, a compelling new voice in New Zealand fiction. Haere mai, Becky Manawatu.

Winner of the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel 2020

Winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction 2020, New Zealand Book Awards

Too many rave reviews and interviews to include them all here. They are all over the internet so this one selected example will do: The best book of 2019 – and it really is immense, a deep and powerful work, maybe even the most successfully achieved portrayal of underclass New Zealand life since Once Were Warriors —Steve Braunias, Newsroom 

Mākaro Press, 2021. B format, 420 pages. 

Condition: new paperback. This copy a 2024 reprint of the 2021 edition.