Historical novels by Mäori writers?

Witi Ihimaera incorporates historic flashbacks and family background in his novels, but the focus on the past is not sustained. Patrica Grace's work is often set in an indefinite rural past, and I have her novel Tu set in Italy during WWII.

But I've not read any straight-out historical fiction— such as Season of the Jew by Maurice Shadbolt— by a Mäori author, let alone a novel on the pre-colonisation era.

Any suggestions, or observations?

By the silence, I gather that it's not just a matter of my narrow compass, but a genuine lack of work in the genre.

You may well be right about a lack of work in the genre - I don't know of any novels that would fit the bill - but a good place to look is the NZ Book Council's Writer Files, where you can look entries on a number of Maori writers to see if they have written such a novel: http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/Writers/Information/Introduction.htm

Thanks for the suggestion and the link.

I try to keep up with Ihimaera, Grace, Hulme, and the first generation of Mäori fiction writers. There's a younger group of writers that I don't know well.

There are Mäori historians (Jim Williams, Angela Wanhalla) writing about the pre-colonial era and colonial times as well.

Rangatira by Paula Morris is the only historical fiction that quickly comes to mind, but is set in Victorian times and most of the action takes place in England. Morris is Ngati Wai descent and researched the story from her own family history.

Hamish Clayton's Wulf which is set in the early part of the 19thC is well worth reading, though he's not Maori. It's probably as close as you'll get to pre-colonial era.

Thanks. I'll see if I can find those.

I'm re-reading my fiction manuscript, which opens c. 1900 on Lyttelton Harbour and travels to Alexandria, France, England, and the US, before the main character returns to New Zealand on a cargo liner in 1940. I've not found anything like it in NZ lit, p'raps with good reason.

Vaguely similar is Karen Zelas's Past Perfect -- it travels between Akaroa, Christchurch, and various locations in France. There's also a bit set in the 1800s, which I think does look at the interactions between the pakeha settlers and local Maori.

Re: Past Perfect. Looked at the first chapters on her website. Have you read the whole thing?

I did, but a wee while ago. So I can't really give yiu any more info than that, sorry.

Read Morris's Rangatira which didn't grip me. The main character, a Ngatiwai tupuna of the author, serves as a point-of-view without doing much beyond observing events and occasionally reflecting. It never caught fire for me.

Just started Clayton's Wulf which is a riskier piece of work. Having begun as a poet and become (painful at times) a writer of prose, I'm acutely conscious of the practical differences. Some parts work, and others make me want to administer a splash of cold water and a rewrite. When a work of fiction makes me want to edit, then I usually don't enjoy it as a reader.

bitser: Don't know if you're still looking, but I remember a novel called Behind the Tattooed Face by Heretaunga Pat Baker published by Cape Catley in 1975. It ran to several reprints. Quite gory, as I remember. Wait, here's the blurb from the Cape Catley website: The story is set in the late 1700s, about 600 years after the great canoes from the Central Pacific had arrived in New Zealand. Here in the new land off the Canoe Coast, in what is now known as the Bay of Plenty, the people settled and prospered and here Maori society reached the zenith of its power and development.

Then, as the people multiplied, the question of survival became inextricably interwoven with the concepts of mana and tribal honour. The delicately poised balance of power was easily upset so that bloody warfare, cannibalism and slavery prevailed.

This electrifying novel is now in its fifth printing and is the first NZ historical novel to be written by a Maori . It is also the first serious attempt to show pre-European Maori people as they really were.