Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
With its candid and raw prose and deep, though disturbing, emotional content, it’s easy to see why this won the PEN Best First Book Award. It remains one of my all-time favorites.
I remember seeing the film in a little independent art house theater in Huntington, New York and being blown away by it. It’s always a great pleasure to discover a movie you love is also a novel and interesting to see how closely the book mirrors the film. The movie follows the book almost exactly until the very end which was much more shocking in the book.
Set in New Zealand in the 1950s, it’s the story of the poverty and hopelessness of an ethnic minority (the Maori) and the violence and drug and alcohol abuse that follow. The children born into that life are torn between struggling to escape it and choosing to embrace it.
One of the most powerful scenes is an exchange between the wife, severely beaten by the husband, who retains the pride of her ancestors, who “once were warriors” while her husband is descended from slaves.
This is a difficult book to read but an important one that will not disappoint.