Cousins

Description

One of Patricia Grace's most popular novels. Now a feature film, this is the unforgettable story of three women's intersecting lives. Makareta is the chosen one - carrying her family's hopes. Missy is the observer - the one who accepts but has her dreams. Mata is always waiting - for life to happen as it stealthily passes by. Moving from the forties to the present, from the country to the protests of the cities, Cousins is the story of these three cousins. Thrown together as children, they have subsequently grown apart, yet they share a connection that can never be broken. A stunning novel about tradition and change, about whanau and its struggle to survive, about the place of women in a shifting world. '. . . it is robust and powerful. I simply could not put it down. Lyrical and vibrant, smoothly paced and quietly rhythmic, Grace's language moves easily from one person to the next, as the stories unfold.' - Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, NZ Listener 'Cousins is an engrossing story that runs on in the head long after it has finished.' - Dominion Sunday Times 'Patricia Grace writes with an enviable clarity and power.' - Evening Post Cousins has been adapted for the screen, the film produced by Miss Conception Films and Whenua Films, directed by Ainsley Gardiner and Briar Grace-Smith, screenplay by Briar Grace-Smith and Patricia Grace.

Patricia Grace is one of New Zealand's most celebrated writers. She has published over 35 titles, including novels, short-story collections, works of non-fiction and books for children, a number of which have been translated into te reo Maori. Among numerous awards, she won the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards in 1986 for the much-loved Potiki, which also won the New Zealand Fiction Award in 1987. She was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001 with Dogside Story, which won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Fiction Prize. Tu won the 2005 Montana New Zealand Book Awards Fiction Prize and the Deutz Medal for Fiction and Poetry. Her children's story The Kuia and the Spider won the Children's Picture Book of the Year and she has also won the New Zealand Book Awards For Children and Young Adults Te Kura Pounamu Award. Patricia was born in Wellington and lives in Plimmerton on ancestral land, in close proximity to her home marae at Hongoeka Bay.

"Cousins is an engrossing story that runs on in the head long after it has finished." --Dominion Sunday Times "It is robust and powerful. I simply could not put it down. Lyrical and vibrant, smoothly paced and quietly rhythmic, Grace's language moves easily from one person to the next, as the stories unfold." --Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, NZ Listener "Patricia Grace writes with an enviable clarity and power." --Margaret Mahy, Evening Post