Once Were Warriors

Once Were Warriors is Alan Duff's harrowing vision of his country's indigenous people two hundred years after the English conquest. In prose that is both raw and compelling, it tells the story of Beth Heke, a Maori woman struggling to keep her family from falling apart, despite the squalor and violence of the housing projects in which they live. Conveying both the rich textures of Maori tradition and the wounds left by its absence, Once Were Warriors is a masterpiece of unblinking realism, irresistible energy, and great sorrow.

Alan Duff's ground-breaking first novel is one of the most talked-about books ever published in New Zealand and is now the basis of a major New Zealand film. This hard hitting story is a frank and uncompromising portrayal of Maori in New Zealand society. It is a raw and powerful story in which everyone is a victim until the strength and vision of one woman transcends brutality and leads the way to a new life. Alan Duff was born in Rotorua and now lives in Havelock North.

Critical Reviews

Kirkus Reviews US Upon its New Zealand publication in 1990, this controversial debut novel rocketed to the bestseller list. It's easy to understand why. Beth, a Maori mother, feels nothing but anger and disgust at her people, who accept second-class citizenship as a given. Relegated to government housing in an unnamed city, she lives just two vacant blocks away from whites whose homes offer tantalizing glimpses of a privileged existence she and her family will never have. As far as Beth is concerned, the Maoris would not have become impoverished lackeys with very little self-esteem had they stayed close to their warrior roots. Instead, the men's lives consist of beer, gangs, fights, and beating their wives. Beth receives a "hiding" for embarrassing her husband in front of his friends, her daughter is raped and commits suicide, her young son is carted off to juvenile hall, and his older brother dies in a gang fight, but Beth finds strength by summoning up her tribal heritage and teaching it to others. A lot to take in, but these are only the most active moments in a book whose main action is interior. Readers are treated to the mind's musings before and after events, the distinctive imagery of people locked in a present they're trying to forget. Duff (himself the son of a Maori mother and a white father) shows amazing facility with language in the intense, fast-paced, choppy internal monologues he gives his characters. Making skilled use of the repetitive nature of thought, he draws readers inside each voice in turn, using dialect (often including profanities) so naturally that it reads easily even for Americans. Duff shows courage in attacking the view that assimilation is the first step out of poverty, and he does so by spinning a compelling tale. (Kirkus Reviews)