Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku
Ngāhuia’s books (5)
FROM THE OXFORD COMPANION TO NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE
Te Awekōtuku, Ngāhuia (1949– ), short story writer, essayist and spokeswoman on Māori, feminist and lesbian issues, was born in Rotorua of Te Arawa, Waikato and Tūhoe descent.
At Auckland University she was active in gay and feminist movements and Nga Tamatoa, the emergent Māori rights group. She completed an MA in English (1974), with a thesis on Janet Frame, and PhD on the socio-cultural effects of tourism on the Te Arawa people (1981).
She was curator of ethnology at the Waikato Museum, 1985–87, lecturer in art history at Auckland University 1987–96, and is now professor of Māori studies at Victoria University. Her first short story, ‘Tahuri: the Runaway’, was included in New Women’s Fiction (1987) and in her own collection, Tahuri (1989). Loosely autobiographical stories of a young Māori girl's growing up and discovery of sexual identity, this collection makes Māori, and especially lesbian, women central and Pākehā peripheral, carrying out what Te Awekōtuku has called her ‘responsibility to the fierce women fighters, shamans and poets of Māori legend and myth the resilient courageous women of my own extended family to ensure their stories are not lost in a mawkishly romantic muddle of male translated history’.
This statement, rejecting ‘colonial and contemporary ethnography’, is from Mana Wahine Māori: Selected Writings on Māori Women’s Art, Culture and Politics, a collection of essays from 1971 to 1990 which weave together the strands in her life as Māori, feminist, lesbian and academic.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Ruahine: Mythic Women (2003) is a collection of fresh retellings of traditional stories about women of mana in Māori myth and history.
In the 2010 New Year Honours, Te Awekotuku was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori culture.
In 2024, Ngāhuia's memoir, Hine Toa: A story of bravery, was published by HarperCollins. Patricia Grace described the book as 'at once heartbreaking and triumphant'.
