Banjara by Shana Chandra. Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand (2026). RRP: $37.99. PB, 336pp. ISBN: 9781869718411. Reviewed by Neema Singh. Banjara, the debut novel by Shana Chandra, brings to the forefront the very real history of the Girmitiya, the Indian people who were brought over to Fiji to work the sugarcane fields as indentured labourers under…
Between Dreams: Resistance and Representation in Asian Aotearoa edited by Grace Gassin. Te Papa Press (2026). RRP: $50.00. PB, 288 pp. ISBN: 9781991165589. Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam. In Priyamvada Gopal’s radical book, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent, Gopal looked at the history of anti-colonial struggles as not simply being one of struggles from…
Lucky Creatures by Joseph Trinidad. THWUP (2026). RRP $35.00. PB, 264pp. ISBN: 9781776923090. Reviewed by Vaughan Rapatana. I will come out and state this right now: Lucky Creatures is an outstanding compilation of thirteen autobiographical essays. These are chronologically arranged to trace the life of Joseph Trinidad from his upbringing in Luzon, Philippines to his—and…
The End and the Beginning by KJ Holdom. Simon & Schuster (2026). RRP: $39.99. PB, 352pp. ISBN: 9781668236925. Reviewed by Jessie Neilson. The sense of inevitability, circularity of history, and impending doom is intimated in a seemingly innocuous image midway in the aptly-named The End and the Beginning. In this novel set in a small…
Portrait by Jackson McCarthy. AUP (2026). RRP: $25.00. PB, 68pp. ISBN: 9781776712304. Reviewed by Niamh Hollis-Locke. Boasting endorsements from the likes of Anna Jackson and former Poet Laureate Chris Tse, Portrait is a stunning debut that establishes McCarthy as a serious poet who can go toe-to-toe with the best of them. Characterised by a maturity…
The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul by Richard Langston. AUP (2026). RRP: $49.99. PB, 376pp. ISBN: 9781776711567. Reviewed by Joanna Mathers. Music artists The Clean emerged from Dunedin in the late 1970s and have exerted an oversized influence on independent music ever since, both in Aotearoa and internationally. Shaggy, shambolic, with…
Childish Palate by Shariff Burke. Tender Press (2026). RRP: $32.00. PB, 242pp. ISBN: 9780473762490. Reviewed by Cybonn Ang. Childish Palate, Shariff Burke’s debut short story collection, brings together eleven stories centred on protagonists from a range of Asian ethnic backgrounds. Food is involved in all of them—the business of it, the enjoyment of it, the…
What to Wear by Jenny Bornholdt. THWUP (2026). RRP. $25.00. PB, 72pp. ISBN: 9781776923069. Reviewed by Jordan Hamel. Jenny Bornholdt’s What to Wear is the former poet laureate’s 12th collection, and, to my deep shame, the first I’ve read cover to cover (a mistake I’ve since rectified). Coming in with mostly fresh eyes to review…
The Work of Angels by Anisha Sankar. Dead Bird Books (2026). RRP: $35.00. PB, 76pp. ISBN: 9780473772499. Reviewed by Kahu Kutia. The role of a storyteller is to preserve. This work of preserving is a burden that I often think about in my writing. As storytellers, we engage in the work of knowledge collectors, archivists,…
Party Boy by Breton Dukes. THWUP (2026). RRP: $38.00. PB, 320pp. ISBN: 9781776923038. Reviewed by Niamh Hollis-Locke. In 2022, spurred by the 2014 conviction of former Otago Boys High School (OBHS) teacher David Bond for indecent assault against a student in the 1970s, and the wave of further convictions which followed, author Breton Dukes began…