Black Earth White Bones

Chris Else

Dec 2010 · Sold by Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited

About this ebook

From one of New Zealand's most thoughtful writers, not just a finely crafted novel but a whole country, complete with dark undertones. Kit Wallace has spent his whole life running away. Through luck and lack of purpose he has finally washed up in the Pacific nation of Ventiak. Here, on the top floor of the Royal Albert Hotel, he avoids his past by drinking whisky and writing poetry he fully intends no one should ever read. Yet, despite himself, he has been drawn into the lives of the people around him. When he is invited to join a scam in the phosphate industry, which will defraud the Ventiakans of millions of dollars, he is torn between disbelief, self-serving cynicism and a loyalty that takes him by surprise. His life begins to unravel and his is forced into action. Meanwhile, in the upland forest, the Rage is beginning: a periodic rampage of millions of ants that will sweep over the island, carrying all before it. In this, his fifth novel, Chris Else has created an utterly convincing Polynesian setting with its own brilliantly realised language, culture, flora and fauna. His humour and wisdom are at once merciless and forgiving as he uses language to explore man's - and woman's - deep-seated need to be both an individual and to belong.

About the author

Chris has been an established figure in New Zealand literary affairs since the early 1970s when he was associated with the avant garde poetry magazine Freed. He has published six adult novels and two collections of short stories, his most recent publications being Gith, Black Earth White Bones, On River Road and Beetle in the Box. He has also written plays for stage and radio and scripts for television. He has been a bookseller, a teacher, and a publisher's representative and has also worked in the Information and Computer industry. Chris has twice been National President of the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN) and has also been chair of the board of directors of Copyright Licensing Ltd. He and his wife, Barbara, were instrumental in setting up both the New Zealand Association of Literary Agents and the New Zealand Association of Manuscript Assessors.