The Uncle's Story: A Novel by Witi Ihimaera

Michael Mahana’s personal disclosure to his parents leads to the uncovering of another family secret-about his uncle, Sam, who had fought in the Vietnam War. Now, armed with his uncle’s diary, Michael goes searching for the truth about his uncle, about the secret the Mahana family has kept hidden for over thirty years, and what happened to Sam. A powerful love story set in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam and in present-day New Zealand and North America, Witi Ihimaera’s powerful new novel courageously confronts Maori attitudes to sexuality and masculinity and contains some of Ihimaera’s most passionate writing to date. UH Press, 2002 Paperback, 373 pages