The Pictures In Our Heads

New life for Auē and The Bone People

The debut novels by West Coast writers Keri Hulme (The Bone People) and Becky Manawatu (Auē) are modern classics. Now both books are being transformed into a variety of media and translated around the world, and Auē is soon to have a sequel: Kataraina. What are the challenges of re-creating characters like Ārama and Kerewin in drawings and moving pictures and writing their stories with different words? Are they the same or do they take on a life of their own? Auē publisher Mary McCallum talks with author Becky Manawatu, translator Francesca Benocci, and Marian Evans of Spiral Collectives, who first published The Bone People.