Title: Sprigs
Description: It is Saturday afternoon and two boys' schools are locked in battle for college rugby supremacy. Priya - a fifteen year old who barely belongs - watches from the sidelines. Then it is Saturday night and the team is partying. Priya's friends have evaporated and she isn't sure what to do. In the weeks after 'the incident' life seems to go on. But when whispers turn to confrontation, the institutions of wealth and privilege circle the wagons. Sprigs is the latest novel from Brannavan Gnanalingam. His previous novel Sodden Downstreamas short-listed for the Acorn Foundation prize for best fiction of the year.
Subjects: Teenage boys, Fiction, Conduct of life, Private schools, Single-sex schools, Rugby Union football, School sports, Racism, Misogyny, Gang rape, Sexual abuse victims, Homophobia, Masculinity
Places: New Zealand