The Last Living Cannibal

Muru is not revenge. Muru is about balance. You put your hands on one of theirs and they had every right to take from you and yours whatever they meant to take, short of a life.

Aotearoa in the 1940s, and the Maori men of Taranaki have refused to join the Maori battalion because of the severity of their land confiscations. Koko is the oldest man in the village, a legend within his community – he’s lived through the land wars, Parihaka, imprisonment in Dunedin, and they whisper of him as the Last Living Cannibal. Koko dotes on his grandson Blackie, who has lived with him ever since Blackie’s mum left in troubling circumstances years earlier.

But the ghosts of the past are bound to come calling, and when they do, they come with muru in mind.

Richly set in Taranaki during the 1940s, The Last Living Cannibal is the epitome of a classic Aotearoa novel, from one of this generation’s most promising writers.

Author Biography

Airana Ngarewa (Ngati Ruanui, Nga Rauru, Ngaruahine) was born and raised in Taranaki. He is a schoolteacher and a former professional cage fighter.

His debut novel The Bone Tree, published in 2023, was the number-one bestselling work of fiction in Aotearoa New Zealand for 11 weeks. His second book, Patea Boys, was published in 2024 and is uniquely designed to be read one way in English and the other in te Reo Maori.