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Extract

New Zealand’s leading Māori writer decides at eighty to go back and learn his own language – and write about it.

Novelist, memoirist and playwright Witi Ihimaera – author of Pounamu, Pounamu and The Whale Rider – decided, at the age of eighty, to dive back into the water and spend a year full time at Te Wānanga Takiura, immersing himself in his own language, in te reo Māori.

This book tells the story of this kaikaukau, this swimmer, and his year i te ao o te reo – of sinking and floating; of loss and shame, connection and wairua; of fathers and teachers, kuia and friends.

A riveting and revealing memoir, Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer sparkles with whaikōrero and whakataukī and is written for all – Māori and Pākehā, fluent reo Māori speakers and those for whom the language is still a mystery, a dream, an aspiration.

It is the story of a Māori New Zealander reclaiming his voice, history and whakapapa in contemporary Aotearoa. Of becoming Witi Ihimaera Smiler and drawing closer to his desire to write a novel in te reo for his beloved father Tom and his tīpuna. 

Author

Witi Ihimaera Smiler DCNZM, QSM, was born in Gisborne and is of Te Whānau-a-Kai, Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata and Ngāti Porou descent with connections to Tūhoe, Te Whānau-a-Apanui, Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāi Tāmanuhiri. Diplomat, professor and one of Aotearoa’s most distinguished living writers, his many books include Pounamu, Pounamu (1972), The Matriarch (1986) and The Whale Rider (1987), made into a hugely successful film in 2002 and also translated into te reo Māori by Tīmoti Kāretu. He has received numerous awards, including the Wattie Book of the Year, the Montana Book Award and a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement. In 2004 he became a Distinguished Companion of the Order of New Zealand and in 2017 France made him Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He is, today, recognised as one of the world’s leading contemporary indigenous authors and thinkers. He lives in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.

Endorsements

‘This personal work of exposure, confession and humility is about learning to stand “at the centre of your own ignorance,” becoming a student again in (relatively) old age in order to address one of the key issues of colonisation, the removal of language and its embedded cultural knowledge. When Witi says “I have started at the beginning again,” it is a rallying call for all of us to overcome our feelings of shame and inadequacy, to take up the challenge of embarking on “a new and enthralling journey.”’ — Paula Morris

‘E poho kererū ana ahau i a Witi, i tōna kaha, i tōna manawaroa, i tōna ngākau titikaha hoki ki te ū ki te ako i tōna reo rangatira. I smiled and laughed, working my way through Witi’s new pukapuka in Māori, imagining him standing to present these whakapuaki at Takiura. Witi’s stories about his upbringing, his kāinga at Waituhi, ōna kuia, ōna mātua, tōna tamaititanga, and all of it, in te reo Māori, are a true inspiration. Nāna hoki te kōrero, okea wheketia! Koia kei a koe, e te hoa.’ — Hēmi Kelly

Reviews

• Witi speaks to Woman's Day about his te reo Māori journey: 'You could say that I was at the top of my profession ... I sat down with the interviewer, and she said, "Can you tell me a little about your career as a Māori writer?" I was sitting there under the blazing lights, wondering what to say, when I saw this person standing on the side watching me, [his late father Te Haa o Ruhia (Tom) Ihimaera Smiler Jr, who passed away in 2010,] ... He said to me in Māori, "All of these accomplishments in the English language, eh son?" And I knew exactly what he meant. Although I had offered all of the best mahi I could in English, it was time for me now to write at least one book i roto i te reo mō ō tātou tūpuna me ngā tamariki o āpōpō [in te reo for our ancestors and the next generation].'
  
  
• Te Kaikaukau was featured in the Otago Daily Times. Tom McKinlay writes, 'Ihimaera's year at Takiura involved further revelations about how to be whole and be well as Māori in Aotearoa – that language, te reo, was central, fundamental . . .'
  
  
• 'In the end there are no bends, no nitrogen poisoning. Papa Witi makes it. Although his year of study coincided with what felt like a war waged by the new government on Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Māori place names, Ihimaera remains positive. "Māoridom is at the beginning of an amazing period of transformation," he writes . . . "The pāhuhu of it, the explosive energy, is resounding through the country".' – Pamela Morrow, Listener
  
  
• 'Who are you? Who are we? Who should we be? What is New Zealand? What should it be? Have we got the capacity, the fortitude as a people to get there? I’m not the only one swimming home. You are too.' – Witi Ihimaera Smiler, in live conversation with Stacey Morrison at the Auckland Writers Festival, as reviewed in The Spinoff  
  
  
• Atakohu Middleton covers the book for Canvas: 'In February 2024, the month he turned 80, Ihimaera jumped into the sea of te reo at Takiura. His fellow students, 160 of them, were from all ages and stages of life, from young people to retirees; a supportive whānau united by their hunger for te reo . . . Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer tracks the peaks and troughs; it is a chronicle, a memoir and a record of Ihimaera’s first efforts at writing in te reo. “It is also,” he says, “a traversal of how a person of my age can go through life and at each turn of that life, can lose his language”.'
  
  
• 'Te Kaikaukau is not a straight ahead anecdote . . . it dips and dives all over the ocean that is the life of Witi Ihimaera Smiler. Which is exactly how it ‘should be’! For oratory in te ao Māori was and is, circumlocutory, digressive, reiterative, synchronizing past, present and future into a seamless and intertwined whole, and – in the same fashion – smoothly fusing the literal interplaying of man and ngā atua. The author achieves his goal of becoming infused with te reo Maōri as a living force.' – Vaughan Rapatahana reviews Te Kaikaukau for FlaxFlower Reviews
  
  
• Read a piece by Witi on the importance of the wheke to his language journey and Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer for The Spinoff.