The Savage Coloniser Book

by Tusiata Avia

Kneel like a prayer full of lynching

This is my God-given white

The voices of Tusiata Avia are infinite. She ranges from vulnerable to forbidding to celebratory with forms including pantoums, prayers and invocations. And in this electrifying new work, she gathers all the power of her voice to speak directly into histories of violence.

Avia addresses James Cook in fury. She unravels the 2019 Christchurch massacre, walking us back to the beginning. She describes the contortions we make to avoid blame. And she locates the many voices that offer hope. The Savage Coloniser Book is a personal and political reckoning. As it holds history accountable, it rises in power.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Roj Taggbert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Racist to the Nth degree. Obnoxious hate speech right here in New Zealand. Reverse the "White" and substitute for "Brown" and you would be had up for inciting racial hatred. This is utter crap.
James,
I heard someone
shoved a knife
right up
into the gap between
your white ribs
at Kealakekua Bay.
I’m gonna go there
make a big Makahiki luau
cook a white pig
feed it to the dogs
and F… YOU UP, BITCH.

and it gets worse.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fierce, brilliant poems. Such rage. So cruelly earned. So viciously, correctly, fairly spat right back.
I liked this very much.

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devastatingly brilliant

[elsa ౨ৎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was breathtaking and brilliant. made me feel so many things i don’t know how to describe. can’t wait to get my hands on more of avia’s work!

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Staggering, brilliant, brutal and abrasive. A glaring commentary on the deeprooted implications of colonisation throughout several contemporary demonstrations.

The poem: “how to be in a room full of white people” describes the anxiousness, the micro-aggressions and the absolute guttural feeling of being a person of colour in a room full of white people in a way that I could never accurately articulate to my partner, a tane pākehā.

The disgust I have in also having gotten this book from Unity books, a book shop that made a profit off of Tusiata Avia when she became profitable, but racially profiling her when she wasn’t convenient for them.

[Chloe Fergusson-Tibble · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fucking hell yes!

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This lady is NZ Queen of letters!! Saw her live at the Ockham Awards last month and she was on fire. So intense. So angry. So impassioned. So beautiful.

[georgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The adrenaline rush I got screaming the poem '250th anniversary of James Cook's arrival in New Zealand' out loud- yeah the energy in this collection is incredible

[Anton Belyakov · Rating 1 out of 5]

Full of maximalism and lack of reason . I wanted to be wrong about the book when I one of the quotes were posted “out of context “. But unfortunately hatred IS the context.

[Jack · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book should never have been published, let alone sold in stores. Blatant racism and threats of violence towards an ethnic group? In 2023? Oh, yes, this is brown people threatening to kill white people so that's somehow OK. Shame on ANYONE who gives this a favoroable revirew.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read.

[Marcus Wright · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author is no more than a racist. Hell bent on causing division in the 21st century for events that occurred in the 19. No one should give this women the desperate attention she is seeking.

[The Bibliognost Bampot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw. Brutal. Honest. Extraordinarily confronting. Uncomfortably personal. Lyrical, important and empowering.

[Catarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gave me EVERYTHING and more! Highlight poems were 250th anniversary of James Cook, Unity and How to be in a room full of white people. So generous and uncompromising. Tusiata 4evaaa.

[Miss Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brash personal voice. I liked Ma'i maliu (i) and Ma'i maliu (ii), Covid in the time of Primeminiscinda, Ten Eighty and Some Notes for Critics.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book but I really enjoyed pages 88-91

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems that speak to my experience, my mums, my aunties, the experience of my Muslim partner, my friends that grew up in South Auckland, and friends that grew up in Christchurch. Fa’afetai lava