BOOK LAUNCH
NOVEL BY VAUGHAN RAPATAHANA
2.00 pm SUNDAY 10 MARCH, 2019 @ Nectar Lounge, Kingslander Hotel, New North Road,
AUCKLAND
FREE ADMISSION Live band Any Day Now MC is Roger Horrocks
Performance poetry – Michael Botur
Full restaurant and bar facilities available.
NOVEL by Vaughan Rapatahana
Published by Rangitawa Publishing, 2018.
ISBN 9780995104662
320 pages trade paperback or on Kindle.
The rapidly developing action in ‘Novel’ straddles Aotearoa New Zealand, Hong Kong SAR, Philippines and beyond. In our contemporary world of increasing electronic surveillance from hegemonic national administrations, several diverse characters struggle to survive to resist in a variety of ways. At the same time the so-called established methods of writing fiction undergo deconstruction.
“With its range of exotic settings and even more exotic characters, ‘Novel’ is a switchback ride written in Rapatahana’s inimitable switchblade prose. A violent murder in a rural New Zealand meat works is the catalyst for a series of fast-moving events that ultimately have geopolitical consequences involving the struggles of dispossessed people and the shady efforts of the powers that be to thwart them.” James Norcliffe.
“A blazing tale of international politics and murder, and the people entangled in it, by design or accident, told in a style that detaches the reader from comfortable reading and a comfortable world, or even a comfortable reading of the world.” John Gallas
“Novel is an innovative and complex creation, both a thriller with fast-moving pace and a meditation on today’s and tomorrow’s world. It is an absorbing read, a journey to diverse cultures…The story weaves back and forth through a multiplicity of unfolding situations both gripping and thought provoking. Be afraid. Or not.” Alan Chamberlain
“The novel has a highly visual cinematic quality to it, cutting quickly from scene to scene while letting the action speak for itself. Its uncluttered narrative held my attention to the last page. It deserves a wide readership.” Bob Orr
“I’ll see you at the launch, eh.” Vaughan Rapatahana
