SOURCE: “The Bone People after Te Kaihau,” in World Literature Written in English, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1989, pp. 123-35.

In the essay below, Ash reinterprets The Bone People after reading Hulme's short story collection Te Kaihau, arguing that neither work emerges favorably.

Does a Booker Prize ensure wide and critical attention for the winner's subsequent publication? Expecting to satisfy a “pent-up demand,” retailers in New Zealand “ordered up heavily” when 1985 recipient Keri Hulme smartly released a volume of short fiction, Te Kaihau/The Windeater, in 1986. However, as one area book manager has said, her company “took a big punt” with Te Kaihau and “just did a nose dive” (Parker 70), Te Kaihau has been a publishing non-event; the book has not sold well and no one has much to say about the stories. The fiction elicits only brief and oblique mention in Ian Wedde's review which focuses on the prefatory poetry...