'The Bone People'

Keri Hulme

Booker Prize, 1985

Set in New Zealand, this novel tells of despairing artist Kerewin Holmes who can no longer create art. She builds herself a tower on the beach and spends her days there, dreaming and drinking. Into her life come a mute, silver-haired little boy, shipwrecked and rescued by locals, and his embittered adopted Maori father. This unusual and riveting novel is woven through with dreams, myth, magic, the world of the dead, and the traditions of ancient cultures. When it was published in 1984, it became the most successful novel in New Zealand's publishing history.