WITI IHIMAERA, distinguished man of letters

I guess with Reed Publishing being subsumed into the giant Penguin Publishing Group the two books by Witi Ihimaera presently gracing my desk may be the last we see under the Reed imprint? On the other hand if I were responsible for such decisions at Penguin I should certainly be keeping the illustrious Reed imprint, at very least for the non-fiction publishing for which Reeds are noted and so admired.
Ihimaera has of course been published by Penguin Books before so dealing with the editorial team there led by Geoff Walker will not be a new experience for him.

The new books sitting on my desk are:

ASK THE POSTS OF THE HOUSE
Reed $35 Published October

and

THE WHALE RIDER – 20th anniversary edition
Reed $50 Publication 28 November

And two fine looking books they make, both with great covers.

ASK THE POSTS OF THE HOUSE I guess could be called either a collection of long short stories or a collection of short novellas! And as the cover blurb claims they show “an intriguing range of narratives – the self-invented myth if ‘Ihipi’; historical fiction in ‘Medicine Woman’; contemporary comedy in ‘The Year of Prince Harry’; the drama of the title story, ‘Ask the Posts of the House’; and science fiction in ‘Dead of the Night’, the story that Ihimaera presented at the International Science Festival in Cheltenham, England last year.”

But for me the highlight is the short, short story ‘Meeting Elizabeth Costello’, the final in the collection. Hilarious, provocative, and quite naughty, this is Ihimaera both having fun and making a serious point at the same time.

An unusual aspect of this book, and for me a most welcome one, is that at the end of the collection the author has provided detailed notes on each of his stories which I found most interesting. This collection has been especially published for Reed’s centennial celebrations which now all seems a little ironic in view of the company's impending demise.

THE WHALE RIDER was originally published in 1987 and enjoyed comparatively modest success until Niki Caro made a movie adaptation of the book in 2002. The movie of the same name went on to win countless awards in film festivals around the globe before going out on general release and subsequently picking up Bafta Awards, Academy Award nominations and almost universal praise.

The book soon became a huge international best seller and must by now surely be one of the biggest selling titles ever to emanate in New Zealand.
There have been a number of editions of The Whale Rider over the years but this latest one is surely the most handsome (complete with colour pics from the movie) , I’m delighted to have it on my bookshelf.
And what a great Christmas gift it will make.

Ihimaera’s reputation as a writer, with more than a dozen published works of fiction to his credit along with several non-fiction works and anthologies he had collected, was already of high standing, he was famous within New Zealand and well-known in some other parts of the world, but with the unprecedented success of The Whale Rider his reputation and mana became truly international.
And of course it was The Whale Rider movie that made actress Keisha Castle-Hughes playing the role of Paikea Apirana into an international star.

Witi Ihimaera is currently in Amsterdam as a ‘Writer-in-Residence’ for six months and to work on the screen adaptation of his award winning novel The Matriarch. While there he is also to lecture at The University of Amsterdam and is expected to launch ‘Ask the Posts of the House’. If I hadn’t just been in London for the Man Booker Prize I would have been tempted to fly over there for the occasion. Amsterdam is a favourite city of mine. Have fun Witi.

Footnote:
Witi Ihimaera and Bookman Beattie both hail from Gisborne and are both old boys of Gisborne Boys High School. I was in the sixth form when Witi was in the third form.
I played hockey at High School and two of the other teams in the senior competition in those years were Waituhi A & Waituhi B. These two teams were made up largely of boys from Witi’s extended family. The Anglicised version of Ihimaera, which they used, was Smiler and virtually all players in the two Waituhi teams were Smilers.
Waituhi features in much of Witi’s writing.

Ihimaera was of course the first Maori writer to publish both a collection of short stories and a novel.
Over the years he has been much honoured for his writing having held the Burns Fellowship, been a Fullbright Scholar, his books have won many awards both at home and abroad, he has been a guest speaker at numerous Festivals around the world, has an honorary doctorate from Victoria University of Wellington and was recently honoured as a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature. When at home in New Zealand (!) he teaches English and creative writing at the University of Auckland.

And he and I share a passion for opera.