Details

Winner of the Hubert Church Prize for Best First Book, 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards

ERIN can hear the whanau whispering, though no one will tell her why. She’s ditched school to help her aunty clean houses, even while carrying the full-time job of caring for the moko. STAR has returned home for the first time in years, hiding the truth that he’s bombing out of uni, as the past weighs heavily.

Set 178 years after colonisation, Poorhara follows the cousins as they flee together in a battered 1994 Daihatsu Mira. Free-wheeling across the countryside, they dredge up family mythologies, heartaches, and rifts, while grasping for the glimmer of possibility—a return to the whenua where it all began.

A tragicomic road trip novel of epic proportions, Poorhara is poignant, expansive, and darkly funny—a striking debut from Michelle Rahurahu.

Why Readers Will Love This Book:
• Winner of the Hubert Church Prize for Best First Book, 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards
• A tragicomic, expansive road trip story exploring family, mythology, and whenua
• Captures contemporary Maori experiences with humour, heart, and depth
• Ideal for readers of literary fiction, contemporary Maori storytelling, and debut novels

Product Details:
• Author: Michelle Rahurahu
• Format: Soft Cover
• ISBN: 9781776921287

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