Maori Boy : A Memoir of Childhood

This is the first volume of Witi Ihimaera's enthralling memoir, packed with stories of the formative years of this much-loved writer. Witi Ihimaera is a consummate storyteller - one critic calling him one of our 'finest and most memorable'. Some of his most fascinating stories, however, are about his own life. This honest, stirring work tells of the family and community into which Ihimaera was born, of his early life in rural New Zealand, of family secrets, of facing anguish and challenges, and of laughter and love. As Ihimaera tells of the myths that formed his early imagination, he also reveals the experiences from real life that wriggled into his fiction. For, as always, his pages are rich with an inventive, stimulating narrative, as one reviewer commented on a previous work, he has an 'easy, playful and relaxed style, while pulling off twists and brilliant touches'. Alive with accounts of various relatives who leap off the page, this memoir is engrossing, funny and moving, but, more than this, it is a vital record of what it means to grow up Māori.