"I never found myself in a book. The children I read about lived in other countries, lands of snow and robins. Sometimes they lived in large houses and had nurses and maids to look after them. They did not belong in extended families, did not speak as I spoke. There were malevolent aunts and terrible stepmothers. It was wrong to be poor. If you were poor you usually did some brave deed that made you rich by the end of the story, when you would marry a princess or a prince. Or you died in the snow while selling matches. Maidens and Jesus were fair. No one was brown or black unless there was something wrong with them or they held a lowly position in society."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
Grace, From the Centre: A writer's life (2021), extract in "'I never found myself in a book': Patricia Grace on the importance of Māori literature", The Guardian.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patricia_Grace
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Patricia Grace
Patricia Frances Grace (born 17 August 1937) is a New Zealand author of novels, short stories and children's books. She was the first female Māori writer to publish a collection of short stories, Waiariki (1975) and has since written seven novels, seven short-story collections, a non-fiction biography and an autobiography.
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