Keri Hulme (1947-2021): The Maori novelist, poet, and short story writer who became the first New Zealander to win the Booker Prize for this luminous debut novel. She grew up in Christchurch and Moeraki, New Zealand. She spent much of her time smoking a pipe or cigarillos, playing the guitar, painting, fishing, eating, drinking and cooking. She began two additional novels, each running to hundreds of pages, but they were never finished.