Grace is Gone
by Kelly Ana Morey

Penguin Books, New Zealand
ISBN: 0143019406

Morey won the most prestigious literary award in her native New Zealand last year, but she has yet to be published outside her own country. Morey's novel, with its sprawling cast of quirky characters and her sometimes comic exploration of cultural identity, will appeal to fans of Gish Jen, Sherman Alexie, or Zadie Smith.

Kelly Anna Morey

Born in 1968 and of Ngati Kuri, Te Rarawa and Te Aupouri descent, Kelly Ana Morey spent much of her ridiculously magical and intensely imaginative childhood in Papua New Guinea. Her teenage years found her located between the maunga and the sea in Taranaki [New Zealand]. Watching.

Two degrees, a B.A. in English and a M.A. specialising in contemporary Maori art, followed and she is currently undertaking a third, a M.A.Lit.

Her story ‘Maori Bread’ featured in the first Tandem 100 Short, Short Stories anthology and ‘The Gardenia Tree’ is found in the fourth edition of the same series. In 1997 her story ‘Tangiweto’ was a finalist in the Huia Maori Writing Awards and subsequently published in the 1997 Huia anthology of Maori writing. In 2001 ‘Cartography’ was published in another Huia anthology of Maori writing. And although three of her poems have found their way into Whetu Moana: Contemporary Poetry in English, brevity has never come naturally, so in recent times Kelly Ana’s interest has turned to the novel and to this end she is working on a trinity of novels called Bloom, Monsoon and Waiting.

Kelly Ana also writes criticism - art and literary - and enjoys dabbling in magazine journalism. She is a graduate of the Auckland University creative writing class and has a soft spot for jack russell terriers, other people's writing, the New Zealand thoroughbred, star gazing and the various ghosts and characters she carts around in the bottomless kete of her imagination.

Source of author information and photo: www.penguin.co.nz