In 1985, Hulme won the prestigious Booker Prize for her novel the bone people (1984). Its Maori perspective and asexual heroine were unusual, as was its vision of a colonial New Zealand transformed into a postcolonial Aotearoa, where Pakeha (New Zealanders of European descent) and Maori would eat and drink together at the same table. It resonated with another nation-building novel: the 1981 winner, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children similarly imagined an unpartitioned India. Although Hulme has published non-fiction, poetry and stories since—most recently a short story collection, Stonefish (2004)--it is the long-unfinished novel “Bait” that her readers are hoping for. …
2183 words
Citation: Fee, Margery. "Keri Hulme". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 September 2006; last revised 30 December 2018. [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2251, accessed 22 November 2024.]
