The devastating March 15 Christchurch terror attacks last year rattled New Zealand to the core, forcing us to look inward and at the things that unite us as a nation, but also confront harsh and uncomfortable truths or division. Prime Minister Jacinda Arden spoke the words, “We are all New Zealanders.” Strong and comforting words but what do they mean?

She went on to explain, “Because we represent diversity, kindness, compassion, a home for those who share our values, refuge for those who need it… we will not and cannot be shaken by this attack.”

This anthology is an important entry point to the conversations we need to have. It examines national diversity with a kaupapa of inclusiveness beyond a surface level. Spanning fiction, nonfiction, poetry and pops of visual art, the work presented is a prismatic range of different styles, topics and voices. The thing that unifies them is that each is a response to the questions, “What is New Zealand now, and who are New Zealanders?”

There are nearly 100 different contributors and it’s impossible to itemise each individual piece here but every contribution deserves a place in this anthology which has been thoughtfully compiled with care and craft. Well-known New Zealand literary heavyweights (David Eggleton, Apirana Taylor, Tusiata Avia, Selina Tusitala Marsh) sit comfortably alongside high school students and fresh voices - who present some of the most powerful work in the anthology.

I read Mohamed Hassan’s poem When they ask you where you are really from and Nataliya Oryshchuk’s nonfiction piece I, the Ghost, shaking my head in recognition and resonance. “Tell them you are an unrequited pilgrim. Two parallel lives that never touch,” advises Hassan.

Oryshchuk notes that “immigration is trauma” and echoes Hassan’s tiredness, and perhaps even boredom of the question, “No, I mean - where are you really from?” I myself get this too. Always from well-meaning chatty Uber drivers but never the Pākehā ones. “Where are you from?” they ask. When I tell them that I am from Ngaruawahia, fully knowing what they really mean, they probe further. “No, where are you really from?” “It’s a small town in the Waikato,” I offer helpfully.

The undisputed rock star of New Zealand literature Selina Tusitala Marsh offers a cutting but crack up break up poem Breaking up with Captain Cook on our 250th anniversary:

Dear Jimmy,

It’s not you, it’s me.

Well,

maybe it is you.

We’ve both changed.

When I first met you

you were my change.

Well, your ride

the Endeavour

was anyway

On my 50-cent coin

Faisal Halabi’s Just Another New Zealand Bloke is a sharp piece written from the perspective of the only resident office Kiwi who hasn’t watched the rugby game. He writes of how the Christchurch attacks, “spread the ugly stain of terrorism to New Zealand,” and reminds us how the global media placed significant emphasis on the idea that this event happened in a country so apparently peaceful and geographically isolated that it seemed both culturally and physically impossible. Many of us have long known that this kind of idealism is a blissfully ignorant fallacy. Halabi reminds us that, “there is more to New Zealand than mere stereotypes around rugby and the beauty of our landscape.”

A knockout piece is the essay The Packers by Catarina De Peters Leitāo about low paid migrant workers packing kiwifruit in the Ōpōtiki and Bay of Plenty region:

The Tongan packers come with minders, too, employed by the Tongan government to watch them. The Tongans are not allowed to form new relationships or have sex with anyone: the minders will know or be informed by others. The minders are part of the workforce that travels from Tonga for the kiwifruit season. Mum tells me there are workers among them who are snitches, hired by the employer. The pack-house employers also keep the Tongan workers under the thumb with draconian contract clauses. Mum says the other workers sometimes gossip about the conditions under which the Tongan packers come here. They know the packing house flies them over to New Zealand and makes them pay back the fare, but no one is allowed to talk about how much it costs. Mum thinks it’s likely that the packing house is screwing them with the airfare. None of the workers will ever know because the Tongan packers, even if they are Mum’s friends, are not allowed to discuss it.

This timely personal and political essay of remarkable observation and depth is the kind of social realism I would like to see more of.

The interjections of artworks throughout the book offer welcome breathers and pause for thought. From the sublime frequencies of mixed media work the light that rains down on them by Kim Pieters, to Claire Beynon’s Fifty-one/A tribute. In this work, 51 metal wick collars from commemorative tealights come together to create a commemorative mandala created for the victims of the mosque shootings. I don’t think this image was the right choice for the cover of this anthology because while fittingly austere and restrained, it looks a bit too flat and murky. But inside the book and in context, it’s very special and powerful.

I could go on. Every page feels fresh and alive, filled with sharp gutsiness, defiance, hurt, honesty and aroha. What an important and galvanising collection this is. Every piece is like an open window or door which gifts us access to a perspective, an observation, experience or insight. And importantly, as a tribute to the 51 people killed in Christchurch on 15 March 2019, the other victims, their families, and all New Zealanders, it offers so much hope and understanding. I feel grateful to the editors, writers and artists. He waka eke noa.

Reviewed by Kiran Dass