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 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.

‘Black Milk’, winner of the Pacific region Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2016

The Birdwoman came into the world while no one was watching. It was her old people who sent her, the ones who hadn’t chosen to make the transition, who stayed in their feathered forms, beaks sharp enough to make any girl do what her elders told her.

‘It’s time,’ they said. ‘They’re ready.’

But was she?

Featuring ’skin and bones’ and ‘shapeshifter’ amongst other retellings of ancient Māori creation stories, portrayals of larger-than-life heroes and tales of engrossing magical beings, which have endured through the ages.

Ka mua, ka muri . . .

Through countless generations, the stories have been reshaped and passed on. This new collection presents a wide range of traditional myths that have been retold by some of our best wordsmiths. The writers have added their own creativity, perspectives and sometimes wonderfully unexpected twists, bringing new life and energy to these rich, spellbinding and significant taonga.

Take a fresh look at Papatūānuku, a wild ride with Maui, or have a creepy encounter with Ruruhi-Kerepo, for these and many more mythical figures await you.

featuring ‘Ātea’:

‘Aunty Ivy is the last to speak. “Remember, you’re at home. You can’t be wrong when you’re home.”

           Something inside Lisa slides into place at these words. She has been feeling lesser than since she walked into the wharenui, not because anyone has made her feel that way but because they are all ahi kā, keeping the home fires burning, while she has been a city Māori all her life. It is her home as much as theirs, but they all have their roles, they know their place, they know each other. She is a latecomer...’

All those familiar social realist furnishings, all those comfortable literary tropes. Perhaps a stroll out under the trees, where things are breezier, stranger, more liable to break the rules. You may meet monsters out there, true. But that's the point. Casting its net widely, this anthology of Aotearoa-New Zealand science fiction and fantasy ranges from the satirical novels of the 19th-century utopians – one of which includes the first description of atmospheric aerobreaking in world literature – to the bleeding edge of now. Spaceships and worried sheep. Dragons and AI. The shopping mall that swallowed the Earth. The deviant, the fishy and the rum, all bioengineered for your reading pleasure. Featuring Tina’s story ‘The Children’

A stunning collection of Oceanic stories for the 21st century.

Stones move, whale bones rise out of the ground like cities, a man figures out how to raise seven daughters alone. Sometimes gods speak or we find ourselves in a not-too-distant future. Here are the glorious, painful, sharp and funny 21st century stories of Maori and Pasifika writers from all over the world. Vibrant, provocative and aesthetically exciting, these stories expand our sense of what is possible in Indigenous Oceanic writing.

Witi Ihimaera and Tina Makereti present the very best new and uncollected stories and novel excerpts, creating a talanoa, a conversation, where the stories do the talking. And because our commonalities are more stimulating than our differences, the anthology also includes guest work from an Aboriginal Australian writer, and several visual artists whose work speaks to similar kaupapa.

Join us as we deconstruct old theoretical maps and allow these fresh Black Marks on the White Page to expand our perception of the Pacific world.

featuring ‘Whare Tangata’:

‘The Queen was buried the same week Josie buried her uterus in the grove of kahikatea near the urupā. Given as she was to reading signs in everything, Josie tried to see some cosmic meaning in this confluence of burials, and even though she couldn’t, for there was no real relationship between the two events, she would forever remember the Queen with the same affection as she remembered she remembered her uterus.’

In this anthology of contemporary eco-literature, the editors have gathered an ensemble of a hundred emerging, mid-career, and established Indigenous writers from Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and the global Pacific diaspora. This book itself is an ecological form with rhizomatic roots and blossoming branches. Within these pages, the reader will encounter a wild garden of genres, including poetry, chant, short fiction, novel excerpts, creative nonfiction, visual texts, and even a dramatic play—all written in multilingual offerings of English, Pacific languages, pidgin, and translation. This aesthetic diversity embodies the beautiful bio-diversity of the Pacific itself.

Two stories from Tina’s 2010 collection of short fiction: ‘Topknot’ & ‘Ahi’:

She was still there. This is the way of the old magic. She could see her grandson from inside the raging flames as she rose up before him. She was fearsome indeed. She enveloped the house, the shed, the surrounding trees. Her moko began to run and she let her flames chase him – destroying everything in his wake. He looked back at her. She sped towards him, but as she came near he leapt away, fleeing towards the creek near his house, which he splashed into, frantically diving into the deepest part of the waterhole, so that her flames could not reach him.