Three Māori Authors Sponsored to World Acclaimed TIBE 15

23 December 2014

Three Māori Authors Sponsored to World Acclaimed TIBE 15

Te Puni Kōkiri and the Council of Indigenous Peoples are sponsoring three Māori writers to the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE 2015) which last year attracted over half a million visitors and and 648 publisher exhibitors from around the world.

Tina Makereti, Peti Nohotima and Linda Tuhiwai Smith are the three authors who will join 19 other New Zealand authors, illustrators and graphic novelists already engaged in the Visiting Author Programme.

TIBE 15 is part of the Te Puni Kōkiri and the Council’s commitment to Chapter 19 of the Economic Cooperation Agreement between the two countries to facilitate economic and cultural cooperation between Māori and indigenous Taiwanese.

Te Puni Kōkiri chief executive Michelle Hippolite said the three sponsored authors would add a rich and unique dimension to the exhibition.

“This is particularly important given our ancestral links to indigenous Taiwan and the increasing economic and cultural opportunities offered by TIBE15 which fulfil our goals of Māori succeeding nationally and globally.”

The authors will be involved in a series of events at the NZ Pavilion in the fair exhibition hall and in other venues in conjunction with Taiwanese publishers.

The Pavilion is intended to provide a setting conducive to the enjoyment of literature around the theme ‘open hearts, open minds, open books’. It seeks to provide a real life demonstration of ‘open heart, open mind’ for the Taipei Book Fair illustrating by example the actual experience of openness in Aotearoa New Zealand.

New Zealand is the guest of honour at TIBE 15, and is taking advantage of the opportunity to promote and showcase the country in as many ways as possible.

The Guest of Honour Programme, managed by the Publishers Association of New Zealand consists of the Visiting Author programme, a Cultural Programme, a substantial publisher presence (both trade and educational publishers selling rights to NZ material), a Graphic Novelist exchange, and an Illustrations Exhibition in the Children’s Hall.

TIBE 15 opens on Wednesday 11th February 2015 and closes on Monday 16th February.

Tina Makareti is a fiction writer. She has also been recognised for her non-fiction, winning the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing – Non-fiction in 2009. Tina completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2008 and the following year she won the Huia Publishers Best Story Award for Best Short Story Written in English. Her first collection of short stories, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa was published in 2010 by Huia Publishers.

Peti Nohotima has written extensively in Maori for all age groups. From picture books for children ‘Parera, Parera’ published in English and Maori in 1991, Whakarongo, Korerohia, Whakaarihia in 2006, to short plays for children a trilogy of novelettes in 2007. She also collaborated with Cliff Whiting in 2008 to write a series of short stories to explain well-known whakatauki; this collaboration was the catalyst for the biography on Cliff Whiting. Peti is well-known outside of her area. She has for the past 20 years or so mentored Ian Christensen and a number of other people throughout the country.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith Ngati Awa, Ngati Porou is Professor of Education and Maori Development, Pro-Vice Chancellor Maori, Dean of the School of Maori and Pacific Development and Director of Te Kotahi Research Institute at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. She has worked in the field of Maori education and health for many years as an educator and is well-known for her work in kaupapa Maori research. Professor Smith has published widely in journals and books. Her book Decolonsing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples has been an international best seller in the indigenous world since its publication in 1988.

ENDS

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