Keri Hulme award winner Becky Manawatu. Photo: Stewart Nimmo
The Pikihuia Awards is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year - with a huge increase in Māori writers in those three decades.
The biennial awards for Māori writers in both te reo and English was held at Te Puia in Rotorua on Sunday.
The biggest award of the night commemorates Keri Hulme - the only Māori Booker Prize winner - donated by her whānau. It was taken out by Becky Manawatu for her book Kataraina.
Manawatu also recently won The Sargeson Prize - the country's biggest short story competition - taking home $15,000 for her work The Vase.
Te Waka Taki Kōrero - Māori Literature Trust chairperson Robyn Bargh said this year was the first time the awards had been held in Rotorua, in conjunction with the Kupu Māori Writers Festival.
The whole idea of the awards is to get more Māori writing and getting opportunities to be published, and to tell Māori stories, she said.
"Māori these days, we live in all different places and with all different experiences and we really want our literature to capture all of those. But we do want to encourage young people to enter as well."
To that end, there is a Tauira (student) Award, won this year by Tamihana Simmonds from Ōtaki.
"And a group came from his school, Te Kura Kaupapa o Te Rito at Ōtaki. And so they were so excited when he won and did a haka, so that was great," Bargh said.
Bargh said times had changed hugely over the three decades the awards had been around, and the quality of writing from Māori writers had also improved.
"When we first set it up in 1995, you'd be lucky to have one Māori writer published a year.
"So, there are miles more Māori writers being published. They are also winning awards. So the National Book Awards these days, there are often a half a dozen Māori writers who are finalists, or even win those awards. Whereas in 1995, that very rarely happened."
Bargh said the focus for the Māori Literature Trust into the future was to increase the amount works being written in te reo Māori, particularly original works in Māori.
"A lot of the books being published in Māori language these days are translations from Pākehā or overseas writers. And we're really keen to publish more original works in Māori with whakaaro Māori and describing our situations as they are today."
There is a lot of Māori language works being composed for Te Matatini, and a lot of those are original works in te reo, she said.
"I think we need to find an avenue for those to be published in some way, because those are building on our literary tradition of ngā mōteatea. And that is our traditional literature."
Bargh said as well as novels and poetry there is a real gap in the future for more works into te reo Māori.
The 2025 Pikihuia Award winners
Keri Hulme Award
- Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Māmoe, Waitaha) for Kataraina
Poetry - te reo Māori
- Aperahama Te Kapua-I-Waho Hurihanganui (Wairarapa, Te Arawa, Te Tai Rāwhiti) for Te Matatini
Poetry - English
- Shelley Burne-Field (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Rārua, Te Ātiawa) for skin
Short Story - te reo Māori
- Darryn Joseph (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Rereahu) for Te Hapori Whanokē
Short Story - English
- Mark Horsefield (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Rehia) for The Sea Within
Tauira Short Story Award
- Tamihana Simmonds (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Huri, Pikitū Marae) for The Price of War
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