Monty Soutar on his first foray into fiction

Acclaimed Maori historian Monty Soutar has turned his hand to fiction for the first time, drawing on almost 40 years of research into the history of Aotearoa and his own ancestral line. Kawai: For Such a Time as This, is the first in an ambitious series looking at how colonisation has shaped Aotearoa New Zealand. In the novel, a 19 year old Maori student asks his elderly grand-uncle about his tipuna, the respected warrior Kaitanga. That's in 1980. Then we're taken back to 1734, to Te Maniaroa, to the aftermath of a battle.