Behind the Tattooed Face

This extraordinary Maori novel burst into the scene in 1975 and has been reprinted many times since. It was serialised in a Sunday paper and talked about everywhere. Why? Because for it was the first time that anyone, Maori or Pakeha, had written frankly about what Maori life had really been like; and as a Maori anthropologist of the time had said, 'This is the first time that a novel has been true to the Maori as he was then'.'Then' was the period leading up to the arrival of Captain Cook in 1769. Previously, Maori had been depicted more or less as a noble savage. Behind the Tattooed Face, with its storyline and characters drawn directly from the author's tribal history, electrified everyone. A film of this novel is now in early stages of production.