Tu by Patricia Grace

• Wellington City Libraries, New Zealand
• Auckland City Libraries, New Zealand

Publisher of Nominated Edition
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd.
ISBN 0143019201

Three Brothers, a war and secrets

Pita - Little Father, Big Brother - stays at home to look after his family as he's done since he was a small boy. There's Jess and Ani Rose to keep him there, but he decides he has to go to war.

Rangi - chatterer, mischievous - is the first to go to war. He has loads of mates and is one of the bravest fighters in the Maori Battalion. He's the go-between for Pita and Tu.

Te Hokowhitu-a-Tu - Tuboy, Tu Bear - is the family's hope for the future. First chance he gets he becomes a soldier, and finds there's no place he'd rather be than with his battalion.

Some years later, a niece and nephew come looking for answers.

It is time for revelations.

Patricia Grace is the author of five novels, four short story collections and several children's books. She was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1937. She lives in Plimmerton on the ancestral land of Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa and Te Ati Awa in close proximity to her home marae at Hongoeka Bay.

Awards for her work include the New Zealand Fiction Award and the Liberaturpreis from Frankfurt for Potiki and the Hubert Church Prose Award for best first book for Waiariki in 1976. Dogside Story won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Fiction Prize in 2001 and was longlisted for the Booker Prize.