A French review surfaces a forgotten Pacific people's history
The literary review En attendant Nadeau devotes an essay in its 2026 rentrée coverage to Le Chant des Rēkohu, a novel that interweaves family investigation and origins research around the Moriori of New Zealand.
The online review En attendant Nadeau has published a piece, dated September 11, on a novel called Le Chant des Rēkohu, part of its coverage of this year's rentrée littéraire. According to the outlet, the book braids together several narrative threads to explore the history of the Moriori, an indigenous people of the Chatham Islands (Rēkohu in the Moriori language) whose story remains little known outside New Zealand.
En attendant Nadeau describes the novel as combining a family inquiry with a search for origins, presenting what it calls a complex account of New Zealand's past and the place of the Moriori within it. The review does not name the author, translator, or publisher, nor does it give further plot details beyond this framing.
No other outlet in the material available covers this title, so details on its length, release date, or reception elsewhere cannot be confirmed here. Readers interested in the Moriori's history, a subject rarely treated in French-language fiction, may want to follow En attendant Nadeau's fuller review directly.
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