by Keri Hulme
First published 1989
Keri Hulme takes readers through three places that shaped her life and imagination. She begins in New Okarito, a West Coast settlement where gold seekers once scrambled for fortune along remote beaches. The author describes how this landscape became her first homeplace, its wild coastline and dense forests marking her earliest memories. She moves to Moeraki, where ancient Maori settlements left traces in the land itself. Here Hulme explores how indigenous history layers beneath the present, creating connections across centuries. Finally, she travels to Stewart Island at New Zealand's southern edge, where isolation breeds a particular kind of belonging. Through each location, Hulme reveals how place becomes more than geography. These landscapes hold personal history, cultural memory, and the quiet moments that define a writer's relationship with home. Her prose captures both the physical reality of these locations and their deeper emotional resonance, showing how three distinct environments contributed to her development as both person and artist.
Genres: 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: personal-journey, sense-of-place
Setting: New Okarito, Moeraki, Stewart Island
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
131 pages · Hardcover · Hodder & Stoughton