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  • Published: 30 May 2016
  • ISBN: 9780143573760
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 360
  • RRP: $29.99

The Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics)





The Burning Boy is a vivid picture of life in a provincial town in times of disturbance and change.

The Burning Boy is a vivid picture of life in a provincial town in times of disturbance and change.
Certainties collapse in the face of violence. People start along strange ways, some to loss or ruin, others to unexpected happiness.

The Burning Boy won the New Zealand Book Awards in 1991.

'Written with verve and economy, Maurice Gee's novel has a wealth of penetratingly observed incidents, some spectacular and dramatic, some distinctly unpleasant. Most, however, are ordinary, everyday events from which Gee builds an engaging narrative and a detailed picture of the life of the city - a city which, under different names in successive novels, he is steadily making into his equivalent of Hardy's Wessex.' - Times Literary Supplement

  • Published: 30 May 2016
  • ISBN: 9780143573760
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 360
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Maurice Gee

Maurice Gee (1931-2025) has long been considered one of New Zealand's finest writers. He has written more than thirty books for adults, young adults and children, and has won numerous literary awards, including the UK's James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the Wattie Award, the Deutz Medal for Fiction, the New Zealand Fiction Award and the New Zealand Children's Book of the Year Award. Maurice is survived by his wife Margareta, two daughters and a son.

Also by Maurice Gee

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Praise for The Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics)

'Written with verve and economy, Maurice Gee's novel has a wealth of penetratingly observed incidents, some spectacular and dramatic, some distinctly unpleasant. Most, however, are ordinary, everyday events from which Gee builds an engaging narrative and a detailed picture of the life of the city - a city which, under different names in successive novels, he is steadily making into his equivalent of Hardy's Wessex.' - Times Literary Supplement

PRH, PRH

'The quality of Gee's insights and observations are such that you recall why, in your youth, you thought that writers had a monopoly on humanity; his attention to detail makes you smile with pleasure.' - Listener

PRH, PRH

'A work of great emotional depth.' - Sunday Times

PRH, PRH
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