Taken

<p><strong>Pulmulla is worried her vision of the future will come true.</strong></p><p><strong>Biligiri just wants to get home. Besides he's in love for the first time and will be a father in 22 months.</strong></p><p><strong>Tant-Meisie is lonely and going around in circles. She meets famous and eccentric people though.</strong></p><p><strong>Hannibal Solo thought he was retired - until Carroll came along and she's hard case.</strong></p><p><strong>On top of this he has voices in his head.</strong></p><p><em>Absorbing and lyrical and poignant in the elephants' message. Like Heathcote Williams' Sacred Elephant before it Taken deserves a wide readership.</em></p><p>-Gareth Patterson author of The Secret Elephants and Beyond the Secret Elephants.</p><p><em>A writer of striking originality with qualities of daring and humour that are rare. Like Lloyd Jones Alex has the ability to create a landscape so vivid the reader feels he is walking down a dusty road or in the hold of a ship.</em></p><p>-Elizabeth Smither novelist and Poet Laureate of New Zealand</p><p><em>There is energy and confidence on every page. The way you inhabit your lines is remarkable.</em></p><p>-Lloyd Jones author of Mr Pip and Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Award.</p><p><em>I was greatly impressed by Taken - an accomplished and poignant story. Here was a writer of considerable potential should he decide to write longer fiction...</em></p><p>- Tessa Duder CNZM OBE author of the Alex quartet winner of Storyline Margaret Mahy Medal.</p><p><br></p><p><em>I've read and re-read your story and I think this: It is intriguing beautifully-crafted moving and poetic... It brings the knowing eye of elephants to bear on the reader creating the feeling of injustice I always have when I'm close to them. It's a parable of imperialism. For all these reasons and more I loved it.</em></p><p>-Bruce Ansley author of A long Slow Affair of the Heart A Fabled Land and Coast: A New Zealand Journey winner Best Illustrated Non-fiction Book at the New Zealand Post Book Awards</p><p><em>Beautiful eye opening exquisitely absorbing gentle and powerful.</em></p><p>-Danielle Mathieson New Zealand artist</p><p> </p>