The Last Living Cannibal - Paperback

by Airana Ngarewa (Author)

Muru is not revenge. Muru is about balance. You put your hands on one of theirs and they had every right to take from you and yours whatever they meant to take, short of a life.

Aotearoa in the 1940s, and the Māori men of Taranaki will not join the Māori battalion because they have lost too much already. Koko is the oldest man in the village, a legend who has lived through the land wars and imprisonment in Dunedin. They whisper of him as the Last Living Cannibal. Koko dotes on his grandson Blackie, and when Blackie is beaten at school, Koko takes up the fight.

But the ghosts of his past are never far away, and when they come calling, they come with muru in mind...

Richly set in Taranaki during the 1940s, The Last Living Cannibal is the epitome of a classic Aotearoa novel, from one of this generation's most promising writers.

Author Biography

Airana Ngarewa (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Rauru, Ngāruahine) was born and raised in Taranaki. He is a schoolteacher and a former professional cage fighter.

His debut novel The Bone Tree, published in 2023, was the number-one bestselling work of fiction in Aotearoa New Zealand for 11 weeks. His second book, Pātea Boys, was published in 2024 and is uniquely designed to be read one way in English and the other in te Reo Māori.