A Fish In the Swim of the World

Description Affecting and evocative, this classic memoir by one of Aotearoa’s finest Mori writers is now updated with new material. ‘This is a book of memories. Some of them are my own. Some of them belong to others. They are as true and as fallible as any memories-distorted by time and distance and a writer’s choice of words…’ In the debut memoir that kickstarted a writing career that has spawned more than 20 books, including many award-winners, Ben Brown writes of a quintessentially New Zealand way of living that may not change the world or even ripple its waters, but is replete with meaning. Gathered from the tobacco-green valleys of the Motueka River where he grew up during the 1960s and 1970s, Brown’s memoir is rich with a sense of place, of family. The strands of his parents’ lives reach from Outback Australia and the hardship years of the Great Depression and World War II, to the Waikato heart of the Kingitanga and a re-emergent people, to a time and place where ‘tobacco was king’ and a small farm by a river was the sum of all ambition. Each story, each portrait, resonates with the dignity, warmth and understated humour of one of our finest poetic voices. Ben Brown (Ngati Mahuta, Ngati Koroki, Ngati Paoa) is an acclaimed writer, poet, performer and publisher who lives in Lyttelton, New Zealand. Born in Motueka, New Zealand, in 1962, he has previously worked as a tobacco farm labourer, market gardener and tractor driver, and has been writing and publishing since 1992. Brown is the author of an evocative memoir, A Fish in the Swim of the World, a number of childrens books, non-fiction works, and short stories for children and adults, many of which have strong New Zealand nature themes. Memoirs Paperback,224 pages H: 210mm W: 140mm Spine: 20mm Weight: 273 grams