Give a man a fish

The Catch: How fish­ing com­pan­ies rein­ven­ted slavery and plun­der the oceans, Michael Field, Awa Press

The Day No One Was Angry, Toon Tel­l­e­gen and Marc Boutav­ant (trans. Bill Nagelkerke), Gecko Press

Awa Press has spent 2014 col­lect­ing hon­ours for Rebecca Macfie’s essen­tial Tragedy at Pike River Mine: a por­trait of life and death at the inter­sec­tion of indus­tri­al labour and inter­na­tion­al busi­ness. This year the imprint has fol­lowed up with anoth­er brave, grip­ping work of insight.

Michael Field, author of Awa’s The Catch, will be known as a Her­ald journ­al­ist and Radio New Zealand’s Pacific cor­res­pond­ent. His long-stand­ing beat has encom­passed colo­ni­al struggles in Sam­oa and mul­tiple Fiji­an coups. In The Catch he reports on mat­ters far closer to home, telling the story of how fish gets from the Pacific Ocean to your belly. His efforts make for a page-turn­er but will sour read­ers’ next taste of hoki.

Field has uncovered work­ing and employ­ment con­di­tions to defy any releg­a­tion of slavery to the past, or to faraway powers. The cast have names you will know from both sides of Par­lia­ment and from the super­mar­ket freez­er. The abuses of human life and dig­nity coun­ten­anced by these and oth­ers deserve to be broad­cast — even if it makes choos­ing Friday’s din­ner harder.

Read­ing of human bar­bar­ity in our the­or­et­ic­ally civ­il­ised age is enough to boil the blood; and this year has seen no few rumin­a­tions on the role of anger. Politi­cians hollered at a raging pub­lic, who ful­min­ated against hoard­ings and journ­al­ists alike; who in turn became frus­trated at being yelled at no mat­ter what they did or didn’t report. There were days when it seemed that to be an adult, to have an idea what was going on, was to have your insides twis­ted in rage.

Gecko Press’s The Day No One Was Angry offers 12 short fables about anger, con­tent­ment and much in between. The beau­ti­ful volume is a book for chil­dren to delve into and out of, to love and think upon. And if anger enters the gut in child­hood but nev­er truly departs, it would be the rare adult who couldn’t find a use­ful thought or two within.