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Profile
Patricia Grace is a novelist, short story and children’s writer.
She is of Māori descent, and is recognised as one of the major figures
in the development of modern Māori writing in the English language.
Selected published works
Potiki, 1986, New Zealand Book Award for Fiction 1987; Cousins, 1992; Baby No-Eyes, 1998; Dogside Story, 2001, Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for Fiction
2001; Tu: A Novel, 2004, Deutz Medal for Fiction, Montana New Zealand
Book Awards 2005; Small Holes in the Silence, 2006.
Publishers
Penguin Books New Zealand www.penguin.co.nz
Biography
Born in Wellington in 1937 of Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa and
Te Āti Awa descent, Patricia Grace began writing while working as a teacher
and raising her family. With Waiariki in 1975, she became the first
Māori woman writer to publish a short story collection. She also won the
PEN/Hubert Church Award for Best First Book of Fiction. Grace later began writing
for children, in particular (but not exclusively) for Māori children, often
in collaboration with writer and illustrator Robyn Kahukiwa. Their book The
Kuia and the Spider (1981) is a New Zealand classic still in print. Mutuwhenua
(1978) was the first novel published by a Māori woman.
Grace draws on her heritage and knowledge of the Māori world to tell stories
about her country that also have universal appeal.
Grace’s novel, Potiki, which won the New Zealand Book Award
for Fiction in 1986, also won the 1994 Literaturpreis in Frankfurt, Germany.
At the time of publication, it was an uncompromising and confrontational work
for the non-Māori-speaking reader, with crucial passages in Māori
untranslated. The structure of the novel draws from Māori mythology and,
in particular, the legend of Maui, something which has immediate resonance for
her Māori readers.
Like many of Grace’s subsequent works, Potiki has been translated
into other languages. She has been published in Germany, Britain and the United
States. Dogside Story won the 2001 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize
for Fiction and was longlisted for Britain’s Booker Prize. It has also
been published in the United States. Her most recent work is Tu: A Novel,
which has been acclaimed for its sensitive portrayal of the experiences of Māori
solders during World War II.
Grace was awarded the Queen’s Service Order in 1988 and, in 1989, was
made an Honorary Doctor of Literature by Victoria University of Wellington.
In 2005 Grace won the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book
Awards. In 2006, Patricia Grace was honoured with the 2006 Prime Minister’s Awards
for Literary Achievement in fiction. In 2007, she was made a Distinguished Companion
of the New Zealand Order of Merit and selected as the 2008 Laureate of the Neustadt
International Prize for Literature.
Grace is a licensed user of toi iho™, a registered trademark denoting
authenticity and quality of Māori arts.
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