Book of the Week: Nadine vs impatient Pākehā climate change activists
The first was under the blanket of Mount Manaia, the mountain on my Ngāpuhi side, the night before mum received her moko kauae. Mum is the first in six generations to bring the moko kauae back into our whakapapa.
The second was on the dawn of Matariki, before welcoming in the new year with whānau from Ngāti Te Ata, on our whenua in Waiuku.
Like a companion, Slowing the Sun travelled with me over the last few months. Not just through physical places, but transporting me back to moments and seasons of my own life. The way I was drawn to Nadine's words during these moments is not a coincidence. It is a testament to her gift as a writer, the ability to ground the reader while moving through sacred moments.
In a Radio New Zealand interview with Mihingarangi Forbes, Nadine spoke about how climate change is always discussed as an issue of emissions. But in a Māori worldview, nothing is separated. We are deeply in relationship with one another. Slowing the Sun speaks to this, inspired by the overwhelming complexity of climate change.
In the opening chapter, we meet Hank Dunn. I really like Hank. Hank has survived five shipwrecks. Hank has had scraps with Tangaroa. Hank and Nadine find each other at a swanky climate change conference full of scientists and researchers. It is through Hank's eyes—and the storytelling of Nadine—that her book begins to take shape.
Climate change, Nadine shows us, has been wrapped up in scenic, carbon-heavy language. But in meeting Hank and walking through Nadine's life with her, we're reminded that most of us, the everyday, ordinary people, are actually more like Hank and Nadine. When environmental scientists start speaking in jargon, so many of us tune out (I know I do). Most of us already know climate change is a massively devastating issue, so how do we connect it back to our everyday lives?
This feels like a good time to tell you as a side note or disclaimer that I know the author. (I sent her this review for her to read first before I filed it.) I first met Nadine around seven years ago. We met through Te Papa Tupu, a mentoring programme for emerging Māori writers run by the Māori Literature Trust.
I was a young, bright-eyed, aspiring author. At the time, I couldn't speak te reo Māori and couldn't tell you where my marae up north was. I remember one moment in a wānanga when Nadine stood up and spoke. Hearing her speak was like watching a vessel open. She was wildly unapologetic and cared so deeply about injustice and the world. How do you even become like that, I asked myself.
Later, on a trip to the Sydney Writers' Festival with Te Papa Tupu, I asked Nadine if I could hang out with her for the day. She said sure, and that we could go on a bike ride. What I thought would be a casual bike ride through Sydney turned into an unofficial tour. We stopped at every statue of every colonial figure and studied what was written on the plaque. Then Nadine would tell me the real history and what these figures actually did.
While we were biking, I barraged her with so many questions and since that day, I've never stopped lol. We were in Sydney for a week but this was the most memorable part of that trip, a gentle nudge that set me on the path of coming home.
This is how I'd describe Nadine's writing. There is intention in every word she writes, every sentence she places on the page is space for you to unfold into yourself, to come to your own conclusions, to relate your own life experiences, a mirror looking back at you.
One of my favourite chapters is the essay titled 'Who Gets to Be an Ordinary New Zealander?' Nadine writes that she wasn't meant to speak—she didn't want to speak—but did in fact speak at a conference with politicians, environmental scientists, and a nice lady who found her hiding behind a pole.
She took the mic and delivered a mic drop by telling the climate activists in the room: 'Not all of us are equally responsible for climate change, and not all of us are equally affected.'
The reactions of those in the room made me laugh. There were groans, side eyes, the impatience of Pākehā environmental activists who had come to tick boxes and pass resolutions.
But what was deeply moving about this moment is why Nadine spoke up. She was thinking about her father, who 'lost his hearing to heavy machinery and his language to shame.'
She could have easily been writing about my own dad. Her father, a hard-working man who spent his life in jobs defined as 'unskilled.' The way she connected her father to climate change is something I had never done before with my own father. I was struck by this—by her ability to make those connections throughout the book.
The way Nadine writes grief is perhaps the most poignant and moving part of this collection. Grief, like climate change, touches everything, and Nadine shows us this through the death of her brother Darren.
The title essay is the one that has stayed with me the most. Nadine says it was through the grief of losing her brother that she came to realise how deeply connected climate change is to his suicide. By the end of the book, I had come to know Darren intimately, and I gained a deeper understanding of whakamomori—the te ao Māori perspective of suicide—and his experiences through his sister's eyes.
Slowing the Sun is about love, loss, grief, hope, beauty. Each essay offers a glimpse into Nadine's life: the joy of a lover, the grief of losing her brother, the relationship with her father. This is what climate change is—it's connected to everything.
The night before Mum got her moko kauae, I found myself wrapped up in the essay 'A thing of the heart, a love letter to Te Ataarangi', dedicated to te reo Māori and coming back home. I began to reflect on my own te reo Māori journey that started five years ago and how at the time, I never would have imagined that Mum would receive her moko kauae. It wasn't even in my sphere of thought because my family felt so far from te ao Māori.
Now being on my whenua—both at Mount Manaia and Waiuku— is a normal thing for me. It never used to be. Te reo Māori and coming home has brought my family closer together. We have turned towards ourselves, to indigenous ways of being, rather than away. That's why we want to look after the whenua, to protect it. That's how Hank survived his shipwreck. Through whakapapa.
I was meant to finish this review a long time ago, but Slowing the Sun is a book I didn't want to or couldn't rush. It is so beautifully, delicately, radically perfect, a book that needs to be savoured, underlined, highlighted, with a lot of notes and Post-it tags.
Nadine captures it beautifully when she writes how, 'Māori communities aren't captured by the deficit language of climate change….People on the ground talk about Indigenous reclamation, constitutional transformation, anti-colonialism, radical dreaming, joy, creativity, pride, and a future seven generations bright.'
And this is how it's always been for Indigenous people. We look seven generations ahead as we imagine a better world to leave for our future descendants.
I loved Slowing the Sun. It's a companion that will continue to traverse with me throughout my lifetime.
The essay collection Slowing the Sun by Nadine Hura (Bridget Williams Books, $39.99) is available in bookstores nationwide.
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