Ockham NZ Book Awards Winner 2025
Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book Awards: HUBERT CHURCH PRIZE FOR FICTION
"Poorhara is a road trip novel unlike any other. Two cousins, Erin and Star, pile into a 1994 Daihatsu Mira in a desperate bid to escape the suffocation of racism and poverty, the rigid expectations of whānau, and the trajectory of their own pasts. The judges were impressed by the urgency of Michelle Rahurahu's tragi-comic crises and the clarity of her depiction of colonialism, a presence in the book as incessant and rotten as Star’s relentless toothache."
Poorhara is the story of nineteen-year-old Erin, her older cousin Star/Whetū and an impromptu road trip taken over a few days. With the demands and heartbreaks of whānau, poverty and trauma nipping at their heels, Erin and Star trace the path back their whenua, in the hope of salvation - something they ultimately find in each other.
Michelle Rahurahu (Ngaati Rahurahu, Ngaati Tahu-Ngaati Whaoa) is a writer who was raised by taangata turi. She was a co-editor of Te Rito o te Harakeke, an anthology of Māori voices for Ihumaatao. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the IIML, where she won the Modern Letters Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Michael Gifkins Prize for Poorhara.
Cover design: Todd Atticus
Paperback
300 pages
H: 210mm W: 138mm