The unforgiving sea

Kim Knight - Sunday Star Times - 21/11/2010

Photo by Lawrence Smith  - Witi Ihimaera says the rigour he's had to apply due to The Trowenna Sea controversy boosts his coming work.

A year after scandal engulfed author Witi Ihimaera he talks, for the first time, to Kim Knight, about life after he was labelled a plagiarist.

Every four weeks or so, Witi Ihimaera drives to a storage unit in Ponsonby, Auckland.
The country's first Maori novelist, the author of international phenomenon The Whale Rider, and one of five 2009 Arts Foundation Laureates, opens the door and contemplates the unit's contents.
Books. Some 1800 copies of The Trowenna Sea – the novels Ihimaera bought back when they became the subject of a literary plagiarism scandal.
"I can't destroy them. I can't do anything, because I'm still proud of them."
He laughs a little bit, and adopts a fatherly tone: "No matter what happened, I still love you. And I'll see you next month."

It's exactly a year since Listener reviewer Jolisa Gracewood detected similarities between 16 passages in The Trowenna Sea and existing work by other writers.
As more uncredited copying was uncovered, Ihimaera accepted his $50,000 Laureate prize.
Auckland University was heavily criticised for not sacking its professor of English and creative writing. Wellington writer Vincent O'Sullivan stressed he wasn't directly referring to Ihimaera – but likened literary plagiarists to sporting drug cheats.
"All these weather fronts were coming in from all these directions," says Ihimaera.

He remembered the farm up Whakarau Rd on the North Island's East Coast. "I'd go out with my father, scrub cutting, or shifting sheep or cattle, and if the weather was clamping down, all he'd say to me was, `oh son, we better find a place to shelter'." Father and son would watch the storm come and go. "And then he'd say, `well, it's over'."

This past week, Ihimaera gave the Sunday Star-Times a lift to the beach. He unlaced his black leather shoes, rolled his jeans to mid-calf, paddled the silty shores of St Heliers and spoke fully, for the first time, about life after being labelled a plagiarist.
"My family doesn't do guilt. What we do is acknowledge, we apologise, we try to fix – and it cost me a lot of money to fix that one up.
"I bought all the remaining copies. The book was never withdrawn from sale. I was never taken to court over it. And frankly, nobody died."

Ihimaera is moving on. On Thursday night, the arterati gathered in Auckland's Town Hall for the launch of next year's Auckland Arts Festival programme.
The programme includes the major concert commission Ihimaera. Next March, contemporary Kiwi recording artists – from Che Fu to SJD – will perform songs inspired by new lyrics written by Ihimaera. Produced by Charlotte Yates, creator of the similar Baxter and Tuwhare projects, the live show will follow the February release of a CD.

Kim Knight's full story, it runs to much of a page in the Sunday Star Times, can be read online at http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/4366622/The-unforgiving-sea.
It is especially interesting as this is the first time that the author has spoken about the problems with The Trowenna Sea.

The Ihimaera story is one of several major book stories in the SST today with some five and a half pages being given over to author interviews, back grounders and book reviews.
Hats off to Books Editor Mark Broatch.

Other stories include an interview with the immensely likeable Kevin McCloud of television's Grand Designs fame and a review of his book, 43 Principles of Home:Enjoying Life in the twenty-first century -Harper Collins; Mark Broatch's interview with Jim Flynn about his new book, The Torchlight List; successful chick lit author Michelle Holman talks to Megan Nicol Reed; Nicholas Reid is impressed by the definitive new collection of Frank Sargeson's short stories; and there are reviews of  An Idiot Abroad, Trade Me - The Inside Story, and Bad Karma.
Book lovers should all read the Sunday Star Times.