The "Whale Rider" Imperative - Working at the Interstices of Fiction and History

The 2011 Arthur Ravenscroft Memorial Lecture on Commonwealth Literature. Guest speaker: Witi Ihimaera, award-winning Maori Writer. 18.10.11, 6.15pm, Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre

"If we don't know where we have come from, how will we know where to go?" Witi Ihimaera talks about writing Maori myth and history, and the huge tribal compulsions that lie behind the writing of The Whale Rider, The Matriarch, The Trowenna Sea and his latest novel, The Parihaka Woman.

Witi Ihimaera (Te Whanau A Kai) began his writing career with the short-story collection Pounamu, Pounamu in 1972 and became the first published Maori novelist with Tangi in 1973. His best-known novel is The Whale Rider, which was made into a hugely successful film in 2002. He has published six short-story collections, written for stage and screen and edited books on New Zealand arts and culture. His recent awards include the inaugural Star of Oceania Award, University of Hawaii 2009, a laureate award from the New Zealand Arts Foundation, 2009, the Toi Maori Maui Tiketike Award, 2010, and the Premio Ostana International Award, presented to him in Italy, 2010.

He was co-producer of the documentary, What Really Happened at Waitangi, screened in 2011, and his work was set to music by well known contemporary musicians in Ihimaera, commissioned for Auckland Festival, March 2011. The television film of his novel Nights in the Gardens of Spain screened at the Hawaii Film Festival in 2010 and premiered on New Zealand television in 2011.

This lecture will be held on Tuesday, 18 October 2011 at 6.15pm in the Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre.