is Kelly Ana Morey’s second novel and, although a finalist in the 2005 Kiriyama Prize, it has not yet received adequate critical attention. Main characteristics of novel are the multitude of narrative voices and the fabric of interwoven life stories of the protagonists constituting a family, a whānau. Already the title of the prologue – “branches of the past” – directs the reader’s attention to the dominant topos of the novel, the family tree, which refers to the Māori concept of whakapapa/genealogy. At the end of this section, the first-person narrator identifies herself in a direct reader address as Minnow Sprite and introduces her Māori family history set in the fictional town of Meridian on the East Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand at the verge of the new…
927 words
Citation: Birk, Hanne. "Grace is Gone". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 October 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=29854, accessed 22 November 2024.]
