About the author:
Becky Manawatu is a New Zealand writer and journalist of Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mamoe, Waitaha and Pākehā background. She was born in Nelson in 1982 and grew up in Waimangaroa on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. Manawatu left home at the age of 18 to follow her husband's career as a professional rugby player and coach in Italy and Germany. They returned to New Zealand in 2016.
In 2016, Manawatu began a Diploma in Writing at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology. Her short story 'Abalone' was shortlisted for the 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. 
Manawatu lives with her family in Waimanagaroa and currently works as a reporter and columnist for New Zealand's smallest independent daily newspaper.

About the book:
Publisher: Mākaro Press, Wellington, New Zealand 
Pages: 420pp (Trade PB 328pp)
Category: Fiction
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Age range: Adult 
Original language: New Zealand English, te reo Māori
Auē [1. (verb): to howl or growl; 2. (interjection) expression of astonishment or distress]

Manawatu began writing Auē in 2016 while living in Frankfurt, Germany. 

Auē is one of the most successful New Zealand fiction books of recent years, capturing the imagination of New Zealanders in the same way as Alan Duff's Once Were Warriors and Keri Hulme's The Bone People. It is the winner of two New Zealand Book Awards 2020, the prestigious Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction and the MitoQ Best First Book Award for Fiction. It also won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel 2020 and was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. 
Auē has been in and out of the New Zealand fiction bestseller list for more than three years in a row. The film rights have been optioned by a New Zealand production company. A sequel to the book is in progress.

Auē was published in the UK and the US (World English) and was reviewed in the New York Times and The Guardian. The novel was published in France in 2022 (French title: Bones Bay, tr. David Fauquemberg; publ. Au vent des îles). Other foreign rights have been sold to Bulgaria, Turkey, Uruguay and Argentina.

Abstract 
A raw, sublime and emotionally charged novel about underclass life in New Zealand 

Auē is an unforgettable read, a hopeful story about family, grief and love. At the heart of the book are two brothers. Taukiri is a teenager, lost after the death of his father and the disappearance of his mother. To escape his grief, he abandons his younger brother Ārama and flees from Kaikoura on the South Island to Wellington on the North Island. In New Zealand's capital, he tries to make a life for himself, sleeping in his car, busking, drinking and experimenting with drugs and women.
Only eight years old, Ārama is left behind in Kaikoura on the farm of his abusive and controlling Uncle Stu and his wife Aunty Kat. They live next door to Beth, who is also eight and obsessed with watching Django Unchained, and her loving and gentle father Tom. Ārama and Beth's friendship is innocent, an honest account of children growing up in rural New Zealand, but it is also shattered by the trauma and violence their families have endured.
Then there is the love story of the brothers' mother, Jade, and her husband, Toko. Jade grows up in a loving and stable family, but once her parents are gone, her life takes a turn for the worse. Her story tells of the harsh way in which gangs and gang life perpetuate pain and ownership in their members.

Manawatu weaves together the four different narrative strands, masterfully capturing the nuances of each voice. There is the wry humour of Ārama's side of the story, reminiscent of the narrative in Taika Waititi's film Boy. Then there is the stumbling incoherence of teenager Taukiri, caught between guilt and youthful innocence. And then there is the story of Toko and Jade, with whom you are compelled to sympathise. 

Auē is a raw and real depiction of the lives of many New Zealanders, a graceful fictional account of the effects of colonisation and marginalisation on the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. Auē starts slowly, draws you in and ends up washing over you like the New Zealand ocean.

Translator Jana Grohnert presented the book in our pitching session on 29 June 2023.

For further information please contact:

Jana Isabel Grohnert 
On this website
E-Mail: [email protected] 
Mobile (NZ): +64 21 0781 427 
Website: www.janagrohnert.com
LinkedIn

Please note: 
International publishers can apply for a translation grant through Creative New Zealand. Administered by the Publishers Association of New Zealand, these grants can cover up to 50% of translation costs, up to a maximum of NZ$5000 (approx. 2850€) per title.
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