Witi Ihimaera at AWRF

10.00am  - An Hour with Witi Ihimaera



The session started with a five minute clip from the movie "The Whale Rider" based of course on Witi Ihimaera's novel of the same name written more than 30 years ago. It was rather wonderful to see this clip again after so long and to see the very young and then novice actress Keisha Castle-Hughes.
The session was chaired by Fiona Kidman who started in rather a serious vein but became more relaxed as the session went on as it became more of a conversation between friends.
The author read A Game of Cards, from Pounamu Pounamu. He is a skilled and entertaining reader, one of the best, with an engaging and moving delivery. At one stage he burst into song and many in the audience joined him.

In a wide ranging conversation with Fiona Kidman he then talked of his early life, his religious family, his parents and siblings, his many aunts and uncles and "lots of grandmothers", school, the influence of Janet Frame and Katherine Mansfield, the 70's, Maori sovereignty, his 15 years with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the various places in which he was based,his 10 years away from writing, his move from writing the Maori sublime to the Maori politic, The Matriarch, he talked of the impact on him of his Mother & Father both dying in 2010. He went on to talk about the craft of writing, said that there are only nine Maori novelists, and then talked about the plagiarism problems with The Trowenna Sea. He outlined them in detail, both the offending excerpts and their authors, and apologised profusely for his actions saying he had made some huge mistakes and that his publishers are working on a new edition.

Moving on to The Parihaka Woman he then read an excerpt which again illustrated what a superb reader he is of his own work.
In question time he talked about Allan Duff's Books in Home programme, Books in Prisons, the movie being made starring Whirimako Black based on his story, The Medicine Woman, and finally he concluded in song.

This was an important session because before a large audience Ihimaera courageously faced his plagiarism demons and for me it was a sort of "coming out", I hope it means he can now get on with writing and with celebrating the 40th anniversary of the publication of Pounamu Pounamu such an important book in our publishing history.
The opening Friday session for me and it was a great start to the day.