Kāwai: For Such a Time as This

Wanting to know where he comes from, a young Māori man travels back to the marae of his people on the North Island's east coast and sits with an aged great-uncle, the guardian of the old stories. What follows is the life of their tupuna Kaitanga, a famed warrior for whom the marae's meeting house is named. Tracing the author's own ancestry, the novel moves through Aotearoa before colonisation, from the mid-eighteenth century to the first meetings of Māori and Europeans. It shows a society rich in scientific, medical and spiritual learning, where family, legacy, tikanga and love of the land come first, but which is also torn by feuds lasting generations, slavery, sorcery, cannibalism and war.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

376 pages in the original

Genres

Historical, War (assigned by AI)

Set in

New Zealand, 18th century

Series

Kāwai, book 1

First published

2022 by David Bateman

Author's age

61 when first published

ISBN

9781776890309 (David Bateman, New Zealand)