Whaea Blue

Whaea Blue is a bold, genre-defying memoir that weaves together personal experience, whakapapa, history, and spiritual vision. It defies linear structure, unfolding in fragments that echo the rhythms of memory, trauma, and ancestral storytelling. Marshall (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Takihiku) writes with a fierce, lyrical voice that merges the surreal and the everyday, blending humour, grief, and insight.

The narrative moves across Aotearoa in rusting European cars, connecting scenes from childhood, parenthood, and past relationships with sweeping reflections on colonisation, addiction, and mental illness. Ancestors, lovers, ghosts, and historical figures appear and disappear, their presence haunting the landscape and Marshall’s interior world. At the centre are the women (Marshall’s kuia, aunties, and tūpuna) who carry and guide her, even as she navigates pain and dislocation.

Marshall’s language is steeped in metaphor and often reflects the structure and worldview of te reo Māori, transposed into English. This produces a powerful, rhythmic style that resists simplification. The book includes dreamlike sequences such as Ans Westra performing for a cruise ship of the dead, blurring boundaries between the real and the visionary.

While its loose structure may challenge some readers, Whaea Blue is intentionally untamed. Meaning accumulates gradually, like whakapapa itself. The result is a raw and intimate work that feels both deeply personal and broadly political. Unflinching, poetic, and unforgettable, Whaea Blue announces Talia Marshall as a singular voice in Aotearoa literature. It is a powerful karanga from the depths of identity, memory, and whenua.