Speechless — Mike Johnson

There came a time when Michael Paewai Meer lost the power of speech. Was he struck dumb by eternity or did he abandon words? This lyrical novel traces Michael's relationship with language from the arrival of the mysterious Word Bringer when he was a child, through the intoxication of words and passion, a reunion with his childhood sweetheart, to his final incorrigible silence. Part historical re-construction, part autobiography, part prose poem, part manifesto, a cry of both joy and despair, a mix of the fantastic and the real, Speechless is a genre defying work that is, above all else, a love story.