Lloyd Jones’s dazzling novel is set on a Pacific Island ravaged by war. Told through the eyes of young Matilda and drawing on the elusive power of great literature, it has caught the imagination of readers the world over.
This multiple award-winning novel follows Matilda, whose schoolmaster, Mr Watts, is the only white man on Bougainville. By his own admission, he’s not much of a teacher and tries to educate the children by reading them Great Expectations, a welcome distraction from what is happening around them. But the horror of civil war is edging ever closer.
Lloyd Jones is one of New Zealand's best known contemporary writers. He has published essays and children's books but his best known works include the novels The Book of Fame, winner of numerous literary awards, Biografi, a New York Times Notable Book, Choo Woo, Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance, Paint Your Wife, Hand Me Down World and the phenomenally successful Mister Pip, winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Montana Medal for Fiction and the Kiriyama Writers' Prize. Mister Pip was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007. He lives in the Wairarapa.
Fiction: general and literary
Paperback, 240 pages
H: 197mm W: 129mm Spine: 17mm
Weight: 230 grams