BOOKS

MAORI GIRL By Noel Hilliard. (Wm. Heinemann Ltd., publisher) Reviewed by Melvin Taylor This Is An extraordinarily well-written, gripping novel dealing with a subject close to the Maori people—the problem of the young and unsophisticated Maori impelled by a variety of circumstances to leave their country homes and work in the city. There is probably no Maori who has not met this problem, either in their own experience or through some one dear to them. For this reason alone, quite apart from its entertainment value, Maori Girl should have universal interest and appeal in the Maori world. Basically, Maori Girl is a documentary study of the stress and tragedy of city life swamping a young Maori, Netta Samuel. But it is much more, too. It is extra good entertainment, a pleasant way of passing the time. But it is much more than that, too. It is a powerful and moving drama as indeed is the real life story of the thousands of young Netta Samuels who must make their way in the cities, though ill-equipped to cope with the city which is equally ill-equipped to cope with them. The story is told with a great depth of feeling and insight into the problems with which young Maori people and their parents are all too familiar. It is full of the human, warm and homespun touches that make it easy to identify one's self, friends and relations with the characters involved. I can hear many a Maori saying, “that sounds just like what happened to Kura, or Wai or Bubs,” for it is a story that has been lived many times though no other writer has seen it so clearly or painted it so vividly as Mr Hilliard. This is the problem that administrators necessarily paint with cold statistics. This is the major Maori social problem of our time. This is the plight of the Maori people in their migration from country to town. This is that problem, in the raw, crying out for an answer. Mr Hilliard paints the picture with a skilful use of words. He sets the changing scenes swiftly with a few lightning strokes of his word brush so that one naturally captures the current mood of his characters. For those who have waited years for this theme to be dramatised, and there are many, I would say that this is it—the New Zealand novel of our time, in that it deals successfully with perhaps the major social problem of our time. Mr Hilliard does not spell out the moral, he does not lecture. He simply tells the story which carries its own dynamic message, tinged with sadness, of the pitfalls of city life for those not armed to meet its thrusts. Noel Hilliard OBTAINABLE AT YOUR STATIONER