Leilani Tamu is a poet, historian and former New Zealand diplomat. Born in Aotearoa-New Zealand in 1982, her ancestry connects her to the islands of Samoa and Tonga. In 2013 Tamu was the Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer in residence at the University of Hawai’i (M?noa). In 2014 she published her debut poetry collection The Art of Excavation (Anahera Press) and in 2017 her second collection Cultural Diplomacy was released. Tamu currently lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

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