Tahuri

Author(s): Ngahuia Te Awekotuku

New Zealand Authors

Tahuri is a moving collection of short stories by Maori writer Ngahuia Te Awekotuku depicting the title character – Tahuri – coming of age in New Zealand. Tahuri is not interested in going with the boys, Tahuri likes watching the big girls, she likes watching the women dressed in men's clothes, and finally Tahuri likes Mirimiri, a young woman like herself.


Product Information

"There is always a special feeling I get when I read a book written by a Maori about being Maori, where the world is described through eyes that are my eyes - the people, the humour, the sadness and the occasions are familiar parts of my life - and Tahuri is such a book." 
-Books for Secondary School Libraries

"Simple, clear, colloquial, and unique... The Tahuri stories captue the thrill and romance of the young adolescent grl watching and adoring older girls and women... What it's like to gorw up Maori, lesbian, and intelligent in the 50's, effectively told- vivid, sensuous, and at times shocking..."
- Aorewa McLeod, Sunday Star, March 1990

"Tahuri is strongly located in a Maori wolrd in Pakeha New Zealand. I would love to have had a book like this to read when I was a teenager, because it validates lesbianism (though certainly does not romanticise it), being young and uncertain and eager, and (again without romanticising) being Maori"
-Pat Rosier, Broadsheet, March 1990

Ngahuia Te Awekotuku MNZM (1949– ) is a New Zealand academic specialising in Māori cultural issues and a lesbian activist. She is descended from Te Arawa, Tūhoe and Waikato iwi.

General Fields

  • : 9780473385552
  • : PangoCatPress
  • : PangoCatPress
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Ngahuia Te Awekotuku