Clay Eaters

by Gregory Kan

Longlist — Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2026

Across eerie jungle landscapes and silent indoor spaces, shards of history and memoir intersect in this haunting new collection.

Certainly, there was an uneasiness to the place

Certainly, I felt like we didn’t belong there

Clay Eaters traverses a network of fault lines diverging and converging at unexpected angles: a mysterious jungle island, military reconnaissance training, the spirits in the trees and abandoned temples, old family homes, the echoes across rooms, the dining table set for the archetypal feast. Here the author asks what it means to write the self, and what it is the living must carry.

Author

Gregory Kan is a writer and developer based in Pōneke/Wellington. His first collection of poetry, This Paper Boat, was shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for poetry in 2017. Under Glass, his second collection, was longlisted for the award in 2020. He was the 2017 Grimshaw Sargeson Fellow.