The much-awaited follow-up to the award-winning international bestseller Aü . In Aü
eight-year-old ¿rama was taken by his brother Taukiri to live with Kat and Stu at the farm in
Kaik¿ura setting in motion the ensuing tragedy which resulted in Stu's death. Aunty Kat was
at the centre of events but silenced by abuse her voice was absent from the story. In
Kataraina Kat and her wh¿nau take over the telling. As one the family recounts 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 generations of t¿puna the swamp on the land owned by Stu
that has been growing since the day the girl shot the man. Unflinching in its portrayal of
intergenerational trauma and violence tender in its harnessing of the hope that future
generations represent Kataraina is a stunning novel that confirms Becky Manawatu as one of the
most talented and powerful writers working in Aotearoa New Zealand today.
