Author Witi Tame Ihimaera-Smiler, 78, has been made the 2022-2023 president of honour of the New Zealand Society of Authors.
The prestigious honour is bestowed on a senior writer and long-serving society member in recognition of their contribution to writing and writers and the literary arts sector in Aotearoa.
Ihimaera is celebrating 50 years since his first book, a collection of short stories was published in 1972, Pounamu, Pounamu was followed by his first novel, Tangi, in 1973. He was New Zealand's first Māori novelist.
He is affiliated to Ngāi Tūhoe, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tāmanuhiri, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Porou, and Whakatōhea.
He has had a hardworking literary career, mainly part-time while holding other jobs, a 16-year stint in diplomacy, and a similar period as a university teacher and professor.
Ihimaera says the society of authors “is committed to ensuring liberal democracy within the writing profession in our part of the world, and I am proud to belong to the organisation.
'Perhaps you exist because of me'
“As a Māori writer, I have a particular kaupapa to ensure Waitangi principles are sustained within this context. Nor can I forget that whenever a reader goes into a bookshop and buys a New Zealand book with their hard-earned income that they are upholding literacy goals in their own households.
“Māori say 'Ka ora pea i a koe, ka ora koe ka au,' Perhaps you exist because of me, I certainly exist because of you. I look forward to the year.”
Ihimaera famously became a novelist after being convinced as a teenager that Māori people were ignored or mischaracterised in literature.
He recalled when he was 15 a schoolteacher instructing his class to read the short story The Whare by Pākehā writer Douglas Stewart, about a young man who encounters a Māori settlement. Ihamaera found the story "so poisonous" that he threw the book out of the window and was caned for doing so.
Writing about the incident in his 2014 memoir Māori Boy, he said: "My ambition to be a writer was voiced that day. I said to myself that I was going to write a book about Māori people, not just because it had to be done but because I needed to unpoison the stories already written about Māori; and it would be taught in every school in New Zealand, whether they wanted it or not."
His 1987 novel The Whale Rider is his best-known work, read widely by children and adults both in New Zealand and overseas. It was adapted into the critically acclaimed 2002 film Whale Rider directed by Niki Caro. His semi-autobiographical novel Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1996) was about a married man coming to terms with his homosexuality. In later works he has dealt with historical events such as the campaign of non-violent resistance at Parihaka in the late nineteenth century.
He is an influential figure in New Zealand literature, and over his long career has won numerous awards and fellowships, including multiple awards for both fiction and non-fiction at the New Zealand Book Awards spanning the period 1973 to 2016, the Robert Burns Fellowship (1975), the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship (1993), and a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement (2017). Until 2010 he was the Professor of English and Distinguished Creative Fellow in Māori Literature at the University of Auckland. He has since published two volumes of his memoirs: Māori Boy: A Memoir of Childhood (2014) and Native Son: The Writer's Memoir (2019).
He was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit during the era when knighthoods were no longer offered but he declined to have it converted into a knighthood when the next government brought them back.