Voicing the Maori issue: Patricia Grace’s 'Small Holes in the Silence: Short Stories'

Abstract

Patricia Grace is one of the authors whose career began during the Maori Renaissance, attempting to voice the problems of Maori people. Similarly to her previous works, the short stories included in the collection Small Holes in the Silence: Short Stories provide an overview of the human condition in the contemporary world, with special attention paid to Maori society. Grace provides the readers with a glimpse of the lives of ordinary Maori people in precarious situations. Her stories are pervaded with silence. The use of omission and understatement is combined with the introduction of passive characters whose worlds are filled with the secret, the unknown or the void.