the imagination of a Maori writer of such skill and power. The repeated word of the title, Pounamu, however translucent to New Zealanders, will be opaque to the English reader. It means ‘greenstone’, a New Zealand form of jade evocative of a past when it was the prized material of axe and ornament; and evoking also an early novel by William Satchell, The Greenstone Door, in which Satchell, a Pakeha, tried to do from the outside for the epic times of the Maori wars and in the romantic idiom of a former day, what Mr Ihimaera has now done from within for a time of transition, when the heroic has faded. The problems of the Maori, making their transition from a communal primitive society to an atomized industrial society, lie behind many of these stories, and the inevitable clash of generations, conflict of loyalties, the pull of the past and the push of the present. Mr Ihimaera handles all this with subtlety and restraint, rightly making the creation of people his priority and leaving their problems to present themselves implicitly through the way his characters behave. There are few writers who can write from love without stumbling into bathos or sentimentality; Mr Ihimaera can. This is the most interesting new writing to come out of New Zealand for a long time and implies a promise of more.

SAMOA Reithmaier and Goodman Collins, $4.95 reviewed by Ernest E. Bush The publication of this book will do much to bring to the notice and the knowledge of the citizens of New Zealand an appreciation of the country and the way of life that many of our Polynesians, now well-established as New Zealand citizens, have left; it should help us to a better under-sanding of that jewel of the Pacific we know of as Samoa, somewhat off the tourist track, unless it be visited as part of an islands' cruise on the monthly trip of the supply ship which has only limited space for tourists. It is a book of photographs and text. Gregory Riethmaier has used his camera to good effect, and has captured much of the unspoilt beauty of the Samoan Islands. And this is the charm, both of the book and of the Islands of Samoa, that Samoa is unspoiled by the need to dress it up for the tourist. To those of us who have known the islands in the past, there is perhaps an element of surprise that little seems to have altered. The photographs taken by the author in 1972 could have been taken in 1952. The land seems still unspoilt, the people still charming and affable and smiling. The DC3 still lands at Faleolo Airport (though under different ownership). Flagraising day is still celebrated with the same programme. Mr Reithmaier's photographs show that the women still wash their clothes in the time-honoured way in the streams and the children still show excited curiosity about the ways of the white man. The lava-lava continues to be, with his bush-shirt and helmet, the uniform of the Samoan policeman. Nor have tin shacks replaced the attractive Samoan houses, in which the Samoans appear still to sleep on their mats. Changes there are of course, and the author has drawn on some pictures he took while sailing with von Luckner in 1398. But the photographs should be enough to entice the visitor to see for himself this lovely land, to meet its people, to feast his eye on the natural beauty and colour which is Samoa. And if he can't, the book will do it for him. Over 200 photographs, many in natural colour, say, THIS IS SAMOA. The sub-title of the book advises the reader that the book is about the Samoan way of life, and in this respect it is a sociological study, without being an academic treatise. In his pictures the photographer has shown the people in their natural habitat, and performing their customary activities, whether they be at work or at play. Since there are two Samoas, Eastern