Three historical novels that address the impact of colonisation in Aotearoa, told from the perspective of nine generations of a Maori whanau... That's a pretty big challenge that respected historian Dr Monty Soutar has set himself. He's been awarded the $100,000 Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer's Fellowship to continue his work on the trilogy called Kawai, with Book One due for publication in October. Dr Soutar is promising an honest appraisal of Aotearoa prior to and post European colonisation, with the trilogy starting in the 1720s up to the present day. Lynn Freeman asks if he would have taken on this ambitious project without the years he's spent researching Maori history and talking to kaumatua.