Shana Chandra

Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles (Canongate Books, 2022), 272pp, $25; Sign Language for the Death of Reason by Linda Collins (Moth Paper Press, 2021), 141pp, $37.99; Island Notes: Finding my place on Aotea Great Barrier Island by Tim Higham (Cuba Press, 2021), 156pp, $38

The notion of home is both fragile and tenacious. It is an indication of our need for stability throughout the constant change that is life. We think of homes as solid: a house sturdy on the ground, our parents immortal, our country never changing. But all is eroded slowly by ravages of time or in an instant. A house is never as big as it was in our childhood eyes; our parents fade with age until they disappear. Our countries become smaller, too, as we travel away from them and look back; shores are washed-away; earthquake fault lines bring down towns; a war declares that a country is no longer ours. We often think of home as outside ourselves, not within us, despite it being something we hold precious in our mind—which may be why the notion of home seems so elusive. Each of the Aotearoa authors in this review either directly references or subtly hints at different notions of what home might be: they search for it, commemorate it, comment on it, or try to remember it, sometimes all at once. [Read more…]