The pride of Aotearoa

Even though we're only a small country situated at least an ocean away from most places, with a population less half of Los Angeles', Aotearoa New Zealand has a thriving creative spirit. Even if you have never visited our corner of the Pacific, you've very likely listened to Lorde or Split Enz over the radio, or watched a film starring Sam Neill, Temuera Morrison, or Rose Matafeo. Even if you haven't, there are now few rocks under which the name Taika Waititi is still unknown.

We can also lay claim to a number of very talented writers. I have picked a dozen of them to tell you a little bit about today who are particularly influential or iconic; this is not by any means intended to be a comprehensive list, however, so this is also a call to my fellow kiwis to contribute in the comments by telling us all about your favourite New Zealand writers!

Eleanor Catton

Although she was born in Canada, Eleanor Catton grew up in my own hometown of Ōtatutahi Christchurch. She is known for writing novels in the genre of literary fiction: The Rehearsal, The Luminaries, and Birnam Wood, though she also has some screenwriting credits to her name. Her novels have been highly acclaimed, particularly the Booker Prize-winning The Luminaries, and her earlier two novels have both been adapted, into a film and television miniseries respectively.

Lynley Dodd

Anyone who was a kid, or raised a kid, in New Zealand in the last 40 years is almost certainly familiar with a certain scruffy pup from Donaldson's Dairy named Hairy Maclary. Along with his friends Hercules Morse (big as a horse), Bottomley Potts (covered in spots), Muffin McLay (like a bundle of hay), Bitzer Maloney (all skinny and bony), and Schnitzel von Krumm (with a very low tum), Hairy Maclary has been a national icon for generations of kiwi children. Lynley Dodd, who was made a dame in 2002, has continued to write an illustrate new books in the series up until 2017 from her home of Rotorua.

Janet Frame

Janet Frame was a true giant among kiwi writers. Despite wrestling with significant mental health difficulties throughout her life, she was incredibly prolific, writing in a number of different types of media, from novels to poetry to autobiography to short fiction, over a span of five decades. She also travelled a lot, mainly to Europe and the United States, but she always came back eventually to her home in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Over the course of her writing career and following her death in 2004, Frame has been lauded with dozens of awards and honours for her work, and even today she is considered an academic cornerstone of New Zealand literature.

Maurice Gee

Like Janet Frame, Maurice Gee is a highly productive and beloved part of the canon of New Zealand literature. He is known amongst his younger fans for his science fiction children's books such as Under the Mountain, which has been adapted multiple times for the screen and stage, or The Halfmen of O. His adult readers, on the other hand, might be more familiar with novels like the multiple-award-winning Plumb, the titular character of which was based loosely on his grandfather. In all of Gee's writing, whether fictional or not, for adults or children, there is a strong sense of Aotearoa as a place—as well as his inspiration.

Keri Hulme

Keri Hulme (Kāi Tahu and Kāti Māmoe) started writing from a young age, and by the time she was 30 she had won the Booker Prize for her debut novel, The Bone People. Hulme was the first person to take the prize with their first book, as well as the first winner to hail from Aotearoa New Zealand. She also published a number of poems and short stories, with many of her works tapping into her Māori heritage and the history of various places she lived in and loved across the South Island.

Witi Ihimaera

Over the last half a century, Witi Ihimaera (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki) has been a strong voice on behalf of Māori representation and perspectives in literature, pushing back against an overwhelmingly colonial narrative. He has written dozens upon dozens of works, the most well-known being his novel Whale Rider, which was adapted into an award-winning film in 2002. He has been internationally recognised for his influence in establishing a wide-ranging oeuvre in Māori literature, and as of this year is still contributing to it.

Margaret Mahy

With well over 100 titles to her name, Margaret Mahy was more than just foundational to children's literature in Aotearoa—she was its very bedrock. She spent much of her life living on the Banks Peninsula, a particularly lovely part of the country close to Ōtautahi Christchurch. Since 1991, significant contributors to children's literature have been given the Margaret Mahy Award, beginning with Mahy herself. She has become such a beloved kiwi icon that after her death in 2012 a playground was built in Ōtautahi to commemorate her.

Tina Makereti

Over the last two decades, we have seen some very notable work from Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore). Her booksOnce Upon a Time in Aotearoa and Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings, a short story collection and novel respectively, both won the Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Award for Fiction, and she can claim several other international awards and nominations. While continuing to keep up with her own writing, she is also currently focusing on helping to train up the next generation of writers, both as a teacher at Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University of Wellington and by speaking at literary events around the country.

Bill Manhire

Bill Manhire is one of Aotearoa New Zealand's pre-eminent poets, upon whom a great number of awards, appointments, and honours have been bestowed. He is also the founder of the first university-level creative writing course and the International Institute of Modern Letters, both based at Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University of Wellington, as well as the source of some of my favourite advice from my own creative writing lecturers: "1. Write what you know, and / 2. Write what you don't know"; I have taken this guidance firmly to heart, and will have to elaborate on it in a future post.

Katherine Mansfield

Of all the writers on my list, Katherine Mansfield was the first. Although she only lived to be 34, her influence has continued for more than a century after her death in 1923. Mansfield had started writing short stories professionally 20 years earlier, and became especially prolific in her final years of life. Her stories reflect many of the wide-ranging experiences of her short life—she certainly lived it fully—including her childhood living in Pōneke Wellington. She has been widely regarded as a writer not just in her home country, but internationally as well, even so far as appearing as a character in other authors' writing. You can find her name all over the place today, adorning school houses across New Zealand, a street in France, and multiple awards, one of which is particularly nationally prestigious (and has been given to several other writers mentioned in this post!).

Ngaio Marsh

If you are, like me, a fan of classic murder mysteries, you will already be familiar with the name and the work of Ngaio Marsh. Born and raised in Ōtautahi Christchurch (my city has put out quite a few talented writers, it seems), Marsh has been crowned one of the four Queens of Crime thanks to her 32 excellent mystery novels featuring the suave detective Roderick Alleyn. What may be slightly less well known is that she was also a great supporter of theatre in New Zealand at a time when theatre was hard to come by; she was very passionate about the stage, and her work in directing and producing plays (particularly Shakespeare) has left a lasting mark on the local theatre community. Little wonder I like her so much!

Tamsyn Muir

To round off the list, I want to include a writer who has only recently burst onto the international writing scene: Tamsyn Muir. In 2019, her debut novel Gideon the Ninth gained international attention, winning the Crawford Award and the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and being nominated for 10 other awards for speculative fiction. She has completed two more books in the series (The Locked Tomb), and fans are eagerly awaiting the fourth installment. Muir likes to push the boundaries of convention and composition in her work, and if her followers are anything to go by she will definitely be a writer to keep an eye out for if you like sci-fi that goes in unexpected directions.

Kiwi or not, how familiar are you with the writers on this list, and are you keen to find out more about them? Are you in the process of adding some of their books to your TBR list? Tell us about it, and happy reading!