Keri Hulme &
the bone people
Spiral is best known for having published Keri Hulme’s Booker Prize-winning novel.
'a writer, painter and whitebaiter'
Keri Hulme.
Photograph Hulme whānau.
Keri Hulme (1947-2021 Ngāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Orkney, Lancashire) described herself as 'A writer, painter and whitebaiter...interested in chance and dreams and change, and, above all, People. Particularly that wonderful person Papatūānuku’.
She spent all her life in Te Wai Pounamu, the South Island. Moeraki on the Otago East Coast was her turakawaewae-ngākau, and she lived for over 30 years in a house she built herself, in Ōkārito on the West Coast.
Keri & Spiral
Writer, composer and musician Hirini Melbourne (1949-2003 Tūhoe, Ngāti Kahungunu) introduced Keri and Spiral, back in 1979. The next year, Keri contributed to the Opening Show at the Women’s Gallery — Spiral’s umbrella organisation from 1980-2004.
After that, Keri corresponded and exhibited with us regularly. Out of that relationship came the collective that published the bone people, her only published novel.
Keri reads at the Women's Gallery 26 Harris Street te Whanganui-a-Tara 1980.
Photograph Fiona Clark..
'a new kind of novel'
Spiral first edition 1984.
Cover illustration Keri Hulme. Cover design Basia Smolnicki.
Keri started to write the bone people when she was 18, and wrote it for both sides of her whānau, as “A new kind of novel blending reality with dreams, melding Māori and Pākehā and weaving strange and hurtful pasts into strangely bright futures”. Her mother, Mary Miller, was her only editor.
I very much wanted...to be a bridge between my Māori relations and my Pākehā relations, and I wanted very much to make explicit, explicable, the spiritual world. And I wanted to make clear why, when people are alienated from that, they do terrible things to themselves and to others. So there was no way I was going to water down, for instance, that final section, which for me is the heart of the book and points to the 'strangely bright future', with hope and healing.
"Reconsidering the bone people", Australian
and New Zealand Studies in Canada, 12, 1994.
Publishers were very interested in Keri’s manuscript, but would commit to it only if she’d edit it: each had different ideas about how it should be edited. She refused all offers and decided to abandon the project and encase the manuscript in resin.
Then, as she wrote later, “Enter to sound of trumpets and cowrie shell rattles, the Spiral Collective”: Irihapeti Ramsden (1946–2003 Ngāi Tahupotiki, Rangitāne, English), Marian Evans (English, Welsh), Miriama Evans (1944–2018 Ngāti Mutungā, Ngāi Tahu).
The collective also tried to find a publisher and couldn’t. Then, with love and with loving support from many, they published the bone people themselves, in 1984.
Launch of the bone people at Te Ako Pai marae Wellington Teachers College, led by Keri Kaa. February 1984.
L-R Marian Evans holding Penn, Irihapeti Ramsden, Miriama Evans, with Keri in front. Photograph Stuff.
Irihapeti Ramsden and the bone people, made by her children Peter Burger and Pirimia Burger in 2005.
Invitation to the bone people launch
Designed by Irihapeti Ramsden, probably after consultation with her Pōua Barney, Pani Manawatu (1984)
Text reads: ANO HE PUA KA TAE KI TONA PUAWAITANGA Tenei taku manu ka rere ki uta ki tai Ka rere marakiraki, ka rere matongatonga PIKI MAI! KAKE MAI! E nga iwi, e nga reo, e nga karangatanga katoa. He powhiri tenei kia tae a tinana mai ara the bone people. Ka whakahautia i te Teachers College, Karori, a te rahoroi, te 18 Pepuere 1984 a rua karaka. Spiral invites you to join Keri Hulme and her family at a hui to celebrate publication of Keri’s novel the bone people, at Teachers College, Karori, 18 February 1984. Formalities begin at 2pm. Any enquiries: Elizabeth Ramden 861-301; Miriama Evans 791-383; Marian Evans 844-194.
Miriama Evans, in 2005, reads and sings Te Puawaitanga, her waiata for the bone people launch in 1984.
awards & translations
the bone people won the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction and three major international awards: the Mobil Pegasus Prize, which included US publication and a promotional tour; the 1985 Booker Prize — the first time a book from Aotearoa had won; and the 1987 Italian Chianti Ruffino-Antico Fattore Prize for ‘renowned literary works’ that best express the values of the environment and nature: the next winner was Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison.
It has been translated into many languages, most recently Spanish and Arabic.
adaptation
the bone people Spiral edition, 1984, p2.
Keri refused over 100 offers to adapt the bone people for the screen, because she didn’t want a child actor to have to play Simon, the small, abused child at the heart of the book. She waited for technology to catch up, and then offered the animation rights to Spiral.
The project’s kaupapa is to safeguard the mana of this literary taonga in adaptations Keri would love, made by a new generation and for new audiences. Our work has begun with a graphic novel which will become the basis for the animation. Spiral is privileged and honoured to be part of this and we deeply appreciate the support of Keri’s whānau as we continue our long conversation with Keri and her work. Through the whānau, the centre of Keri’s life, we remain accountable to Keri herself.
Early development was supported by te whānau Hulme, Manatū Taonga the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, and us at Spiral. We put the whole book into Final Draft, identified possibilities and challenges, commissioned sample character drawings and a detailed report, and confirmed that no single writer or artist can adapt the work alone.
a new generation starts work
In the next phase of development a group of writers and artists will work together on the first chapter, ‘Portrait of a Sandal’. This will be both a pilot for the graphic novel and research into safe and effective processes for completing the work as a collective.
You can help us!
We’re raising $130,000 for this stage of development and warmly welcome donations of any amount.
For further information, please click on the button at the bottom of the page and email us. Our pitch document (aka prospectus) will be available from kana spring 2025.
If you’d like to make a gift to the bone people graphic novel project please deposit it in our dedicated Kiwibank account:
SPIRAL COLLECTIVES TRUST
acc no. 38–9026–0058551–04 (MOERANGI)
Ref: Your name
Please then email us so we can acknowledge you and issue a receipt straightaway; and acknowledge you in the graphic novel itself on publication.
Most donations qualify for a 33% tax credit up to your annual net income and you can use your receipt from us to gain this tax credit. The IRD website has more information. GST is not payable on donations.
A new generation of Spiral workers at Moeraki
more on Keri
FREELY AVAILABLE TO READ & DOWNLOAD AT TE PUNA O WAIWHETŪ
Keri Hulme Our Kuru Pounamu
Spiral’s celebration of Keri Hulme, with assistance from her tahu-tuhituhi, various friends and neighbours, from her whānau and from Keri herself, including two stories she wrote when at high school, on themes she developed further in the bone people. Sections on her life with the people she loved and was loved by, in places she loved, on her involvement with the Women’s Gallery and Spiral, and on the bone people. Many illustrations. Cover and drawings Madison Kelly. Third edition.
Moeraki Hillside
A short story Keri wrote when she was in Year 9 at Aranui High School. A precursor to the bone people, it is presented by Spiral as an educational resource. Photographs Kate Salmons and Robin Morrison. Cover Biz Hayman.