28 October 2023

Poet essa may ranapiri took out the Keri Hulme Award at the Pikihuia Awards held in Wellington last night. This was the first time the award has been offered. It results from Keri Hulme’s wish to support Maori writers by setting up a fund from the sale of the original manuscript of her Booker Prize winning the bone people, which was auctioned last year.

Robyn Bargh, chair of the Maori Literature – Trust Te Waka Taki Korero, said, ‘I am thrilled to present the inaugural Keri Hulme award to essa may ranapiri, a poet whose vivid, introspective and powerful voice evokes many qualities shared with Keri herself.  With the support of Keri Hulme’s whānau, we are able to celebrate her legacy through this award – a legacy that continues to shape and inspire the aspirations of Māori writers today.’

The Pikihuia Awards celebrating Māori writers have been held every second year for the last thirty years. This year, writers of short fiction, poetry and non-fiction in English and te reo Māori were recognised as well as the Keri Hulme Award. Hēmi Kelly, Robert Sullivan, Mike Ross, Emma Wehipeihana, Maiki Sherman and Carol Hirschfeld judged the six writing categories and chose a winner and highly commended writers for each.

The awards attract a range of writers with diverse experiences speaking to different themes. ‘So many writers in this category were seeking to find new ways to bring light to the pressing issues most affecting Te Ao Maori – such as the ever-widening equality gap, our climate crisis and the isolation of our elderly. In many stories there was also a strong trend to follow and highlight how the predicament we find ourselves in now, inevitably links to our mythic past and the lessons that were signalled generations earlier’, said Carol Hirschfeld, judge of the Short Fiction in English category.

Likewise, judge Emma Wehipeihana noted a connection with the past in the stories she judged. ‘It is apparent that kaituhi Māori continue to engage with this medium to explore personal and intergenerational trauma, inflicted by the experience of colonisation. The writers who focused on these issues had a nuanced and historically informed perspective, which was illustrated in their empathy for the experiences that shape us, the people who hurt us, but who have been hurt themselves.’

Through initiatives like the Pikihuia Awards, original writing in te reo Māori continues to move from strength to strength. Maiki Sherman, judge of the Non-fiction in te reo Māori category, acknowledged the enduring quality and creativity of the entries. ‘I rewa te ngākau i te kounga o ngā pakiwaitara reo Māori i tēnei o ngā whakataetae. Ko te auahatanga o te whakaaro e pakari ana, waihoki, kua poua ki te mātauranga Māori. Nā reira i tino eke ai ngā toa whakaihuwaka ki taumata tiketike. Ko ēnei tuhituhinga, ka titia ki te whatumanawa, otirā, ka maharatia e te kaipānui mō te wā roa.’

Short fiction in te reo Māori, judged by Maiki Sherman and sponsored by Te Taura Whiri i te reo Māori

Winner:
Te Koha Tūmatarau by Jacob McGregor (Ngāti Raukawa te Au ki te Tonga, Ngā Rauru Kītahi, Te Whānau-a-Apanui)

Highly commended:
Ko te pō whakanui huritau by Atakohu Middleton (Ngāti Māhanga)
Ko Pare te Pūkeko Nanakia by Pine Tamahori Campbell (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Te Wairoa)

Short fiction in English, judged by Carol Hirschfeld and sponsored by Wellington City Council

Winner:
kintsugi with the colour pink by Anthony Pita (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Ranginui)
Highly commended:

Awa by Sarah McOnie (Ngāti Maniapoto, Kāi Tahu)
Affidavit in the Family Court: Ranginui vs Papatūānuku (Letter to the Climate) by Nadine Hura Anne Hura (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi)