‘Where once I saw a view as I drove around the Taranaki coast along State Highway
45, I now see confiscated land from an invasion road. The creation story I used to
subscribe to, the one in which hard-working people came here and settled the land,
now jars. Weirdly, even the lawn looks different.’
So writes Richard Shaw in his third book examining colonisation in Aotearoa New
Zealand. Both have been warmly welcomed by readers and this third volume
of powerful essays, with its wide lens, will not disappoint. As he says, ‘Growing
numbers of Pākehā find themselves standing on restless ground these days:
they, too, are seeing things differently, and in these pages you will also hear their
voices as we reach — fitfully and painfully, individually and collectively — for an
accommodation with our colonial past.’
