Pounamu Pounamu

More about the book

Pounamu, Pounamu is the first collection of short stories by a Maori writer to be published. Pounamu, Pounamu means 'Greenstone, Greenstone' - a lyrical phrase which conveys the haunting quality of most stories in this collection. Look through the greenstone and you will see - an old woman searching the beach for shells to give her grandson, a young boy on a summer morning rushing happily towards manhood, an old man sitting alone in a darkening meeting house, a large sports gathering in a small Maori village, a young man approaching the meeting house to mourn his father. Pounamu, Pounamu is Witi Ihimaera's distinctive view of rural Maori life. It deals with happiness and sadness, and always with aroha. It is his personal vision of Maori life as it is now, and of its values now. It has been written both with anger and with love - aroha - in the hope that such a life, the values of that life, will never be lost. Pounamu, Pounamu - Greenstone, Greenstone..