Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff, Pierre Furlan

An uncompromising portrait of the Maori people, Once Were Warriors describes the convulsions of a civilization in its death throes in the sordid suburbs of a New Zealand metropolis. Jobless and without purpose, clinging to alcohol, the heirs of the ancestral epic go from absurd challenges to bloody confrontations - a pathetic caricature of the heroism of yesteryear. Women and children pay in their flesh, and sometimes with their lives, for the errant behavior in which the "honor" of males in utter disarray is played out. Against this fratricidal community of the underworld rises the violent and redemptive voice of a woman, Beth. A powerful tribute to a threatened culture and to individuals drifting towards a form of collective suicide, Once Were Warriors was awarded the 1991 Pen Club Award for Best First Novel, and adapted for the screen in 1995 by Lee Tamahori.