Status Updates From Ralph Hotere: The Dark is L...

“The old ate Aupōuri story of ancestors setting fire to a pā, then escaping under the ash cloud that gave the tribe its name, seems an apt enough image for the 21 year old who came and went without feeling he must explain himself”
Quiet and thoughtful book so far 🌱✨

I’m enjoying this overall but every so often it feels like the interesting bits are being skipped. Maybe though that’s the nature of biography.

‘As contemporary photographs make clear, his neatly clipped beard and fine-boned features were passably North African. Being questioned was a fairly routine procedure, but it angered him. He was seeing for the first time the full intensity of racism.’


I would like to suggest he may have in fact experienced racism in Aotearoa, but go off

I’m struggling…… I so want to read the story of this wonderful man. However the language and style is seriously off putting.

I will rest it in that pile of one day I’ll try again.