Novel
The Bone People
Keri Hulme · 1984
Synopsis
Kerewin Holmes, a reclusive painter estranged from her family, lives alone in a tower above the sea, on the South Island. One stormy afternoon, a mute boy, Simon, whom the sea has cast up after a shipwreck, comes into her home. She discovers that his adoptive father, Joe Gillayley, a Māori factory worker, beats him; she goes to find Joe in his beach house, and their violent confrontation ends with the promise that he will no longer hit the child without her consent. A dangerous bond forms between the three.
Context
Begun in the mid-sixties and revised seven times, the manuscript was offered around for about twelve years before Spiral, a feminist publishing collective, accepted it. The two thousand copies of February 1984 sold out within a few weeks. The novel won the fiction prize at the New Zealand Book Awards that year, then the Booker in 1985, against the opinion of two of the five judges, who were put off by its scenes of violence against a child; three women from Spiral received the prize in place of the author. Translated into nine languages, it appeared in French from Flammarion in 1996.
Who it is for
A long novel, translated into French in 1996. The Maori, often left as it is in the text, is explained by a glossary at the end of the volume.
Prizes and reception
Booker Prize 1985: the first New Zealand novel and the first debut novel to win the prize; praised for its lyrical originality.
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