Description

In Auē eight-year-old Ārama was taken by his brother,
Taukiri, to live with Kat and Stu at the farm in Kaikōura,
setting in train the tragedy that unfolded. Ārama’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 whānau 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 tīpuna, the swamp on
the land owned by Stu that has been growing since the
girl shot the man.
Becky Manawatu’s new novel is the much-awaited sequel
to award-winning bestseller Auē and is unflinching in its
portrayal of the destructive ways people love one another
and the ancestral whenua on which they stand.