description of the fate of Tangaroa's offspring reflecting the kaumatua's end is powerful writing. Tangi is the return of the son to the village marae where his father's body lay. Rightly, it is the last story and has the effect of gathering all the threads of life's expression into the last surviving ceremonial occassion of ritual Maoritanga. The theme of change is oft times synonymous with the death theme — death being a change in itself. At times it is a change of attitudes as in The Makutu on Mrs Jones. Mr Hohepa, terrible in his arrogance, is challenged by the indomitable Mrs Jones. Out of the conflict is born mutual respect and unity. One wonders if the author is expressing in this microcosmic setting the story of New Zealand — its Maori and Pakeha people. The change in One Summer Morning is physical with the signs of emerging manhood eagerly awaited, enjoyed and exalted in. “Don't be too much in a hurry to be a man,” the father sadly whispers. In Search of the Emerald City tells how the whole family is uprooted and moved off in the direction of Wellington. The theme assumes tragic proportions in The Whale. It is ominous, engulfing and soul-destroying. The kaumatua has painstakingly taught his mokopuna to appreciate things Maori. She had been the only one to show any interest. A visit to the city had changed her. They quarrel. “It is not a Maori world,” she flings at him. His chopping down of the kai-house door and his agonising accusation is a searing indictment against spiritual change — the eroding of values on his turangawaewae. It is incredible that this incident actually took place in real life. It provides the climax for the book. The title is abstracted from Fire on Greenstone. He looks into the greenstone, the rare, milky opalescence of inanga, not the deep, mysterious kawakawa as the cover would suggest. The author sees the richness and spirituality of the values that underline the Maori way of life. Witi Ihimaera is one of the high priests of the reflective movement in contemporary Maori, creative writing. The Te Kaha conference revealed an impatient and strident demand for writings in line with the political and social protestations of today. It claimed that the action was in the city. Witi is a young man, a city man, right in the midst of this great transplant of Maori manawa — heart — from the open hills to the concrete jungle. He has seen the rejection of some tissues resulting in resentment and alienation. His message is spiritual, as a source of strength, a fibre strong enough to support a people in its adjustment. To many, looking into the greenstone would be much like seeing through a glass darkly. But for those who are attumed, the message will be clear. Justification comes from the kaumatua; “He had taught her well and one day her confusion would pass and she would understand.” Two small grizzles: the use of “nanny” for both sexes, and the boob on ‘Haere ra’ in Emerald City. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ We also reprint the review which appeared earlier this year in the ‘Times Literary Supplement’. This collection of short stories is not just a collection. The stories constitute a whole; they are all firmly and deeply grounded in the life of Maoris of today, a life seen through a Maori eye and a Maori memory which fuse truthfulness, faith to the facts, with love. Realism in fiction, because historically it is associated with the battle to give the whole truth and so in practice the battle for the right to include the ugly, is too often loosely assumed to connote only the certain presence of the ugly. Witi Ihimaera's realism is like sunlight which conceals nothing but which, because it contains and controls warmth, a humorous affection, makes the drabbest of detail, the commonplaces of rural and urban poverty, come alive, human, and acceptable. The talent revealed is all the more welcome because this is not only Mr Ihimaera's first book but the first work of fiction (we have already reason to be grateful to Maori poets like Hone Tuwhare) in which the Maoris of our time have emerged through