Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,3, Technical University of Darmstadt (Institut für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft), course: Postcolonial Literature, language: English, abstract: The Whale Rider novel is a positive and sensitive representation of Maori culture and several terms of postcolonial theory can be determined within the novel. That is why it appears worth analysing this text in the context of postcolonial literary studies which is the purpose of this term paper. In chapter 1 I will give a short summary about the colonial and postcolonial history of New Zealand and its postcolonial literature tradition. Chapter 2 deals with the novel¿s main characters and the narrative structure while chapter 3 detects the features of postcolonial theory which are embedded in the story.