TENACIOUS WĀHINE

Name: TENACIOUS WĀHINE
Start: 2024-10-26T15:30:00+12:00
End: 2024-10-26T16:30:00+12:00

Becky Manawatu + Talia Marshall

In her very first festival appearance following the publication of Kataraina, Becky Manawatu discusses the highly anticipated sequel to her bestselling debut novel, Auē, alongside friend and fellow kaituhi Māori Talia Marshall, whose essay collection, Whaea Blue, is one of this year’s most anticipated non-fiction pukapuka. Chaired by Nuki Tākao.

In Auē, eight-year-old Ārama was taken by his brother, Taukiri, to live with Kat and Stu at the farm in Kaikōura, setting in train the tragedy that unfolded. Ārama’s aunty Kat was at the centre of events, but silenced by abuse her voice was absent from the story. In Kataraina, Kat and her whānau take over the telling. As one, they return to her childhood and the time when she first began to feel the greenness of the swamp in her veins – the swamp that holds her tears and the tears of her tīpuna, the swamp on the land owned by Stu that has been growing since the girl shot the man.

Becky Manawatu’s new novel Kataraina is the much-awaited sequel to award-winning bestseller Auē and is unflinching in its portrayal of the destructive ways people love one another and the ancestral whenua on which they stand.

In Whaea Blue, time and whakapapa slowly unravel as Talia Marshall weaves her way across Aotearoa in a roster of decaying European cars. Along the way – which involves time in Te Tauihu – she will meet her father, pick up a ghost, transform into a wharenui, and make cocktail hour with Ans Westra. Tempestuous and haunting, Whaea Blue is a tribute to collective memory, the elasticity of self, and the women we travel through. It is a karanga to and from the abyss. It is a journey to peace.

Becky Manawatu (she/her)

Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mamoe, Waitaha) was born in Nelson. She is a West Coast author and journalist. Her debut novel Auē, won the 2020 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize, the MitoQ Best First Book Award and the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, and almost five years on is regarded as a modern classic, with editions published around the world. The sequel Kataraina will be published in October 2024.

Talia Marshall (she/her)

Talia Marshall (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Takihiku) is a Dunedin-based writer. She has had work published in Poetry magazine, Landfall, Sport, North & South, Mana, Canvas, The Spinoff, Newsroom, Pantograph Punch and with City Gallery. In 2020 she was the inaugural Emerging Māori Writer in Residence at the IIML at Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington, and in 2021 she won the Newsroom Surrey Hotel Writers Residency.

Nuki Tākao (she/her)

Nuki Tākao is a proud descendant of Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Toarangatira, Ngāi Tahu and Ngāi Tūhoe. A cultural exponent, teacher, weaver, researcher, editor, translator and writer, Nuki first started writing in 1994, composing the karakia, Ko Te Whiri to honour Hineteiwaiwa and Te Whare Pora, the house of weaving. Beloved of weavers throughout Aotearoa, it has been published many times.

From the early 2000’s until now, Nuki has translated, edited, published, authored and co-authored books primarily in te reo Māori and written mainly for Māori medium education settings. Most recently, Huriawa, set in Mohua and stunningly illustrated by Robin Slow, is part mōteatea, part karakia and all haiku. Huriawa was written in the traditional style best expressed by the saying, “He iti te kupu, he nui te kōrero”. Although the words are few, they are filled with meaning.