Patricia Grace

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.