The Other Catherine by Lauren Keenan
About Lauren Keenan
Lauren Keenan (Te Āti Awa ki Taranaki) is a writer of creative non-fiction, novels, short stories and popular psychology. Lauren was a winner at the 2017 Pikihuia Awards for Māori writers and a finalist in the 2019 awards. She was also a participant in Te Papa Tupu mentoring programme. Her short stories have appeared in Huia Short Stories collections in 2015, 2017 and 2019. In 2020 her book The 52 Week Project: How I Fixed My Life by Trying a New Thing Every Week for a Year was published, and in 2022 her children’s novel Amorangi and Millie’s Trip Through Time was published. It was a finalist in the 2022 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and longlisted in the ARA Historical Novel Prize. It also won the 2023 Book Lovers Award. Her debut historical fiction novel The Space Between (Penguin Random House, 2024), set against the backdrop of the New Zealand Wars, is a national bestseller. Lauren has a Master of Arts in Taranaki Māori History.
Contact details and socials:
Lauren Keenan
About The Other Catherine
Two worlds, two women, one story . . .
In 1793, eighteen-year-old Catherine is sentenced to transportation on the Tempest, a convict ship bound for New South Wales. Trapped below deck with scores of women, she endures storms, brutality and loss, while dreaming of freedom on the shores of a country far from home.
A century later in Aotearoa, Māori matriarch Keita stands amid the ruins of her whānau and the encroaching world of settlers, whalers and empire. Disturbed by the long reach of colonial change, Keita begins to unravel her own story.
Spanning seas and generations, The Other Catherine is a luminous tale of survival, whakapapa and female friendship, for readers of Jenny Pattrick and Tina Makereti.
Judges’ Comments
Lauren Keenan’s deftly woven double narrative brings two women vividly to life, revealing unexpected connections between convict-era New South Wales and Māori Aotearoa a century later. Each strand evidences deep research and empathy for its characters, from the harsh physical conditions suffered by Catherine and the other Irish convicts en route to Australia and the bonds they form, to Kieta’s life in her Māori papakāinga, her love for her family and the marriage she is forced to make with the whaler, Abraham, as her community faces attack. Keenan has crafted an intimate family history shaped by large events, and as the two stories entwine and the link between them is revealed, a single moment on the convict ship becomes transformed into myth in Aotearoa.
Author Quote
‘It’s an absolute honour and delight to be the first Kiwi shortlisted for this award. It’s a lovely reminder of one of the themes of my book: that Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand have a close connection that goes back many generations. Ngā mihinui ki a koutou.’