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Extract

An essential new anthology of our best Māori short fiction.

Kia hiwa rā ki tēnei tuku,
kia hiwa rā ki tēnā tuku!
E, ko te paenga pakipoto
ka rewa i te pae pukapuka
nekeneke mai, nukunuku mai
ki tēnei huihuinga kaituhi Māori,
ki tēnei pukenga whakaaro tuatini, hī!

 — From the Kupu Whakamihi by Darryn Joseph

Hiwa is a vibrant, essential collection of contemporary Māori short stories, featuring twenty-seven writers working in English or te reo Māori. The writers range from famous names and award winners – Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Whiti Hereaka, Becky Manawatu, Zeb Nicklin – to emerging voices like Shelley Burne-Field, Jack Remiel Cottrell, Anthony Lapwood and Colleen Maria Lenihan.

A showcase of contemporary talent, Hiwa includes biographical introductions for each writer’s work, and explores the range of styles and subjects in the flourishing world of Māori fiction.

Named for Hiwa-i-te-rangi, the ninth star of Matariki, signifying vigorous growth and dreams of the year ahead, this anthology reveals the flourishing world of Māori writing today, in Aotearoa and beyond.

From the introduction:

Hiwa represents a gathering of Māori writers, of different styles and points of view, born and based in different places, with wildly varying relationships to – and knowledge of – their whakapapa. The churning spirals of writers’ lives in the twenty-first century mean that some of the stories also form part of contemporary Australian writing, and American writing. Scholars will find other sets and subsets – Indigenous, Postcolonial, Oceanic, Pacific – and identify genres like realism, crime, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, and so on. No writer, and no story, is just one thing . . . .

[The book] marks the vigorous growth of story-writing by Māori writers in the twenty-first century, each of us building on centuries of precedent, both spoken and written. It also sends a wish soaring high into the night: for more writers to give the short story serious consideration, and for more readers to explore its artful pleasures and possibilities. More stories, more readers, more stars falling from the sky and taking shape in a world that is constantly re-written and re-imagined.

Editors

Paula Morris MNZM (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Manuhiri, Ngāti Whātua) is an award-winning novelist, story writer and essayist from Auckland. Her most recent books are False River (Penguin, 2017), a collection of her essays and stories; and Shining Land (Massey University Press, 2020), a collaboration with photographer Haru Sameshima about the writer Robin Hyde. Her novel Rangatira (Penguin, 2011) won the fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards in 2012, and the fiction prize of the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards the same year. She is the editor of the Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories (2009) and a co-editor (with Michelle Elvy and James Norcliffe) of Ko Aotearoa Tātou / We Are New Zealand (Otago University Press, 2020).

Paula is an associate professor at the University of Auckland, where she is the director of the Master of Creative Writing. She has mentored writers through the NZSA and the Te Papa Tupu Māori Writers Incubator, and also teaches writing at festivals, schools, universities and community programmes in New Zealand and overseas. Paula has been awarded numerous international residencies, and in 2019 was the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow. A former judge for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the Pikihuia Awards and the ARA Historical Novel Prize, she has appeared at literary events in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, India, Japan, South Africa, the UK and the US, and at events on indigenous writing and publishing in Banff, London and Taipei.

Darryn Joseph (Ngāti Maniapoto) is an associate professor at Massey University, andhis quiet, unassuming, yet prolific contribution to reo Māori creativity in Aotearoa is impressive. He has published more than twenty books, and written numerous resources for immersion education, including textbooks, chapter books and journal articles. He is a creative writer himself, past winner of the Huia (now Pikihuia) Short Story Awards for a work in te reo and the LIANZA Te Kura Pounamu Award for a book for younger readers in te reo.

Darryn was a trustee on Storylines and is currently a board member of Read NZ Te Pou Muramura, and has served as a judge for the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards, the NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and the Storylines Te Kahurangi Kāterina Te Heikōkō Mataira Award.

Endorsements

‘It is fantastic to see this publication confidently emerge in supremely capable hands. The new anthology shows the continuing growth of the collective and diverse voices of Māori fiction. It enhances Te Tiriti narratives of participation, protection and partnership by treating our stories as enduring and visible taonga. It will be both a great resource and a great read. E kore e hekeheke, he kākano rangatira.’

— Robert Sullivan

‘The reo Māori stories in Hiwa are a welcome addition to Māori language literature. We have some amazing translation work being completed, but there really is another whole wealth of narrative lying in work produced solely through the medium of te reo Māori. We desperately need original fiction in Māori for adults to read, and the four reo Māori stories in this anthology respond to that well. There are excellent contributions in Māori across a range of themes – coming of age, parenting philosophy, drama and action, and young urban Māori.’

— Vini Olsen-Reeder

‘After reading Hiwa I felt elated, as if I had just been in conversation all night with some of the funniest, smartest and wisest people around. This anthology sparkles, delights and moves. It gives insight into the many faces of who we are as Māori, coming together as a very satisfying whole.’

— Briar Grace-Smith

Reviews

'This apparent lack of a central thematic focus, the wide range of subjects, genres and styles, is, to my mind, the book’s unifying kaupapa and its greatest strength: a celebration of the sheer talent of Māori writers, embodying and expressing the diversity of Māori identity and experience in the 21st Century. — Deborah Walker-Morrison, NZ Listener and Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books

Contributors

Shelley Burne-Field
Jack Remiel Cottrell
David Geary
Patricia Grace
K. T. Harrison
Aramiha Harwood
Whiti Hereaka
Emma Hislop
Witi Ihimaera
J. Wiremu Kane
Earle Karini
Anthony Lapwood
Colleen Maria Lenihan
Nic Low
Tina Makereti
Becky Manawatu
Atakohu Middleton
Kelly Ana Morey
Paula Morris
Pamela Morrow
Airana Ngarewa
Zeb Nicklin
Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall
Rawinia Parata
Ngawiki-Aroha Rewita
Alice Tawhai
Nick Twemlow