Witi Ihimaera on his life and work

This is Witi Ihimaera’s 3rd appearance at Brisbane Writers Festival and he’s delighted to be back. A New Zealand writer of Maori descent he celebrates his 50th Anniversary as a writer with a newly revised version of Tangi (1973), the first novel by a Maori. Highly regarded internationally for his astonishing outpouring of fiction, films, edited works and plays he will be appearing in celebratory events in the USA (a children’s book congress celebrating The Whale Rider), Canada (an Ihimaera 4-film retrospective at the Presence Autochtone Film Festival), Germany (a Big Read Festival at Gutenberg University) and France (a month-long book and film tour). The Whale Rider is the most translated New Zealand novel. Another of his books, White Lies will be published soon in an Ethiopian Amharic Semitic edition. He has many national and international awards including a Chevalier des Arts and Lettres for services to indigenous literature. He lives in New Zealand.

Winnie Dunn is the General Manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and the editor of several critically acclaimed anthologies, including Another Australia (Affirm Press, 2022). She is a writer of Tongan descent from Mount Druitt and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Sydney University. Her work has been published in The Guardian, HuffPost Australia, Griffith Review, Meanjin and SBS Voices. In 2022, she was a finalist for Western Sydney University's Breakthrough Alumni Award. Winnie is currently completing her debut novel, Dirt Poor Islanders (Hachette, 2024), which has been assisted by the Australia Council for the Arts.