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Potiki
AuthorPatricia Grace
LanguageEnglish and te reo Māori
PublisherPenguin Books New Zealand (1st edition)
Publication date
1986
Publication placeNew Zealand
ISBN9780670810550 (1st edition)

Potiki is a novel by New Zealand author Patricia Grace. First published in 1986, the book is a significant work in contemporary Māori literature, and explores themes of cultural identity, land rights, and the impacts of urban development on indigenous communities. The novel was unusual for its time in not including an English glossary of te reo Māori (Māori language) words.

Plot summary

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The novel is set in a coastal community, and tells the story of a Māori family's attempts to preserve their ancestral land and heritage. The term potiki can mean "youngest child" or "last-born child" in te reo Māori (the Māori language), and the title refers to the character of Tokowaru-i-te-Marama (or Toko), a child who foresees and is impacted by the conflict over the land.[1][2][3]

Toko is a physically disabled child born to an intellectually disabled mother and a derelict father. He is adopted by his mother's sister Roimata and her husband Hemi, and raised with their three children in the small community with close connections to the land and the sea. After the closure of the local freezing works, Hemi has no job and they focus on taking care of the land. Toko has visions, however, of future conflict.

Later in the novel, developers attempt to acquire land to build an access road to a new beach resort, which would destroy the community's cemetery and meeting house. The community refuses and the developers react with violence as foreseen by Toko, and Toko himself is killed in the final conflict. At the end of the novel the community begins to rebuild.

Background and inspiration

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In 1985, Grace received a writing fellowship at Victoria University of Wellington, which enabled her to give up teaching, become a full-time writer, and complete Potiki.[1][4][5] It was her second novel, following Mutuwhenua: The Moon Sleeps (1978).[3]

The novel is set in a coastal community resembling Hongoeka, Grace's hometown, which is north of Wellington, New Zealand.[6][4] Although the characters in the novel are fictional, Grace was influenced by the real-life attempts of private developers to acquire land at Hongoeka since the 1950s.[4]

On her writing process, Grace has said:[7]

When I started Potiki I thought I was writing a short story. I wrote the story about the carved meeting house, and when I finished that I thought if we have a meeting house there are people who belong to that meeting house. I asked myself who they might be. I started off with one character – that was Roimata – and how she came to be there, in that community. And then her children one by one, and her husband. I didn’t know from one chapter to the next what was going to happen – I was just following.

The book is narrated by different voices, including most notably Toko, his aunt Roimata and his uncle Hemi,[8] and has a non-linear spiral-like structure.[9] Grace intentionally set the novel out as though it was a whaikōrero (formal speech), following the standard format in Māori oratory: beginning with a chant, then greetings, then telling the story, and at the end finishing with "Ka huri" (sometimes translated as "spread the word" or "over to you", signalling that it is now the turn of the next speaker to tell their story).[5][10]

The story of Toko reflects that of Māui, the hero of Māori mythology, through factors like his relationship with the sea, his unusual birth and other symbols.[10][9] He is also sometimes described as a Jesus Christ-like figure;[9] as academic Roger Robinson notes, Toko's birth parents are called Mary and possibly Joseph,[2] and his sacrifice leads to renewal for the community.[9]

Grace initially wrote the novel in longhand, then "cut it up and stuck it back together with sellotape — the real cut and paste", then typed up the work on a portable writer.[7] On taking up the fellowship at Victoria she had access to a computer.[7]

Publication

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The novel's first edition was published by Penguin Books New Zealand. By 1998 it had sold over 25,000 copies, making it one of the top-selling New Zealand novels at that time and the first member of the "Penguin 25 Club".[11][12]

The novel has been translated into seven languages.[1][4] It is one of very few New Zealand books, and the only New Zealand book by a Māori author, to be translated into Portuguese.[13] In 2020, it was published as a Penguin Classic in the United Kingdom.[6][14]

Reception

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Potiki was widely praised. John Beston, writing for Landfall, identified it as marking a new stage in Grace's career: "there is strong growth in Grace in this book, personally as well as artistically, as she presents an alternate way of life to that of the Pakeha, with its own values".[15] Ten years after its publication, Roger Robinson wrote in The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature that the novel "remains both a popular success and a reference point for discussion of Māori writing and international postcolonial fiction".[2]

Potiki came third in the Wattie Book of the Year Awards in 1986,[16] and won the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction in 1987.[17] In 1994 it received the LiBeraturpreis [de] award in Germany.[1]

The novel was viewed by some critics as political; Beston in his Landfall review suggested that "having sought previously to soothe her Pakeha readers and to suppress her anger, [Grace] is now ready to charge them, not with past and irremediable injustices, but with continuing injustices".[15][18] In response, Grace has said that she was endeavouring to write about "ordinary lives of ordinary people" and did not expect it to be seen as political.[7] She also rejects criticism that the novel is racist against Pākehā, and notes that she never specified the race of the developers.[6]

The novel was also criticised by some publications, including Publishers Weekly, for using te reo Māori (the Māori language) without including a glossary.[6][19] Grace explained:[6]

I'd had a glossary in a previous work and then I suddenly thought that a glossary is there for foreign languages, italics are there for foreign languages. I didn't want Māori to be treated as a foreign language in its own country.

Legacy

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During the 1980s Māori language and culture underwent a renaissance, of which Potiki was a significant part.[6][8] Academics such as Janet Wilson have commented on the novel's role in presenting themes of Māori resistance to colonialisation.[9][20]

In 2006 the novel was voted fifth in a list of favourite New Zealand books over the last 30 years in a poll of writers, publishers and booksellers by The Dominion Post.[21] In 2018 the novel ranked 12th on The Spinoff's list of favourite New Zealand books over the last 50 years as voted by readers,[22] and third on an equivalent list voted by 50 literary experts.[23]

In 2016 a sculpture honouring Grace was unveiled on the Porirua Writers' Walk on the shore of Titahi Bay, inscribed with the following quote from Potiki:[24][25]

Morning came slowly giving outline to the sea and hills, patterning the squares of houses, moulding the rocks, the power poles and the low scrub.

In 2020, Charlotte Graham-McLay writing in The Guardian noting that the book continues to be relevant long after its publication; in 2014 Grace successfully resisted the New Zealand Government's attempts to forcibly acquire land in Hongoeka to build an expressway.[6] A review of the 2020 Penguin Classic edition by Daniel Baksi for The Arts Desk noted that the novel "offers a timely insight into contemporary issues", highlighting its focus on Māori perception of the natural world and its relevance to contemporary issues of capitalism and climate change.[26]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Robinson, Roger (2006). "Grace, Patricia". In Robinson, Roger; Wattie, Nelson (eds.). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-1917-3519-6. OCLC 865265749. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  2. ^ a b c Robinson, Roger (2006). "Potiki". In Robinson, Roger; Wattie, Nelson (eds.). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-1917-3519-6. OCLC 865265749. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  3. ^ a b Derby, Mark (22 May 2018). "Potiki, by Patricia Grace (2nd of 2)". Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d Catherall, Sarah (8 May 2021). "Patricia Grace turns her pen on herself". Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  5. ^ a b Calleja, Paloma Fresno; Grace, Patricia (2003). "An Interview with Patricia Grace". Atlantis. 25 (1): 109–120. ISSN 0210-6124. Retrieved 13 September 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Graham-McLay, Charlotte (23 February 2020). "Patricia Grace's literary legacy: giving Māori characters their 'natural' voice". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  7. ^ a b c d Dudding, Adam (2016). "The Interview – Patricia Grace". Academy of New Zealand Literature. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
  8. ^ a b Kimber, Gerri (21 February 2020). "Land Wars". Times Literary Supplement (6099). Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  9. ^ a b c d e DeLoughrey, Elizabeth (January 1999). "The Spiral Temporality of Patricia Grace's "Potiki"" (PDF). ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature. 30 (1): 59–83. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  10. ^ a b Knudsen, Eva Rask (June 2011). "On Reading Grace's Potiki". Comparative Literature and Culture. 13 (2). Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  11. ^ "Book launch". The Evening Post. 28 August 1998. p. 5. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  12. ^ Sharp, Iain (23 May 1999). "Searching for brilliance on literary scene". The Sunday Star-Times. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  13. ^ Sarabando, Andreia (2021). "Potiki in Portuguese: language hybridity and the pitfalls of paratext". Translation Matters. 3 (1). ISSN 2184-4585.
  14. ^ Potiki. Penguin Random House. 27 February 2020. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
  15. ^ a b Beston, John (1986). "POTIKI, Patricia Grace". Landfall. 40 (4): 501. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  16. ^ "Past Winners: 1986". New Zealand Book Awards. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  17. ^ "Past Winners: 1987". New Zealand Book Awards. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  18. ^ Drichel, Simone (October 2001). "Tough grace". New Zealand Review of Books (50). Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  19. ^ "Grace: Potiki". Publishers Weekly. 27 February 1995. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  20. ^ Wilson, Janet M. (March 2009). "Literature as resistance in the Maori Renaissance: Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Alan Duff". Anglistik: Journal of International English Studies. 20 (1): 173–187. ISSN 0947-0034. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  21. ^ Somerset, Guy (16 September 2004). "Our favourite NZ books of the past 30 years". The Dominion Post. p. ID4. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  22. ^ "Winner of our great book prize announced as Elizabeth Knox is proved most popular author of all times". The Spinoff. 24 April 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2023.
  23. ^ "The 50 best New Zealand books of the past 50 years: The official listicle". The Spinoff. 14 May 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2023.
  24. ^ "Her place, her people: Porirua honours Patricia Grace". Radio New Zealand. 3 July 2016. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  25. ^ Latham, Arihia (12 December 2020). "Sculpture, art highlighted in Porirua walk - the place of two tides". Stuff. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  26. ^ Baksi, Daniel (23 February 2020). "Patricia Grace: Potiki review – a searching examination of human nature". The Arts Desk. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
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