ABSTRACT
New Zealand’s Keri Hulme, who won the Booker Prize for her only novel, The Bone People, also utilises traditional Māori mythology to portray ongoing struggles for Māori identity and culture but in different ways from Ihimeara’s book. Wright’s novel explores Māoritanga in the broader context of a multicultural society, drawing also on the Gothic and the supernatural, and advocating reconciliation. Wright employs what has been called a trinity myth, which highlights Māori people’s connection to their land, and which incorporates much of the magical elements of the text. However, the chapter discusses how the magical is largely contained in the book’s fourth and last section, which makes the magical seem too highly structured rather than an organic component diffused throughout the text. Wright’s employment of magical realism and the environmental is also examined in light of her short stories.
