Is an extraordinary novel blending reality with dreams, melding Maori and European, weaving strange and hurtful pasts into strangely bright futures.

A literary tour de force, this unusual, painfully- felt novel focuses on a strange and uneasy triangle. Kerewin, a sometime artist living alone on the edge of the sea, finds her solitary, self- sufficient life interrupted by the arrival of a silent urchin who communicates with her only by sign language. He is claimed eventually by his stepfather, whose relationship with the boy often erupts into violence, frustration and despair.

THE BONE PEOPLE is an extraordinary, alive and intense book, which has already been widely acclaimed in Keri Hulme's native New Zealand. It scrutinises closely, in fresh and original language, the equivocal faces of love.