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First published fifty years ago, this classic novel was Albert Wendt’s first published book.

This classic has been released in the Popular Penguin format to mark 50 years of publishing in New Zealand. The format reaches further back to 1935, when Allen Lane founded Penguin Books with a clear vision- ‘We believed in the existence of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it.’

Samoan-born Albert Wendt was working as a teacher in Samoa when he wrote the autobiographical Sons for the Return Home, first published half a decade ago in 1973. It is the story of a cross-racial romance between a Samoan student at Auckland University, the son of migrant parents, and the daughter of a wealthy palagi family. It was an instant bestseller and was later made into a successful movie.