Witi Ihimaera

New Zealand author who was the first published Māori novelist. Ihimaera is of Māori descent (Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki) and Anglo-Saxon descent through his father. His stories generally portray Māori culture in modern New Zealand. His work often focuses on problems within contemporary Māori society. He began to work as a diplomat at the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1973, and served at various diplomatic posts in Canberra, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Ihimaera remained at the Ministry until 1989, although his time there was broken by several fellowships at the University of Otago in 1975 and Victoria University of Wellington in 1982 (where he graduated with a BA). In 1990, he took up a position at the University of Auckland, where he became Professor, and Distinguished Creative Fellow in Māori Literature. He retired from this position in 2010. In 1995, Ihimaera published Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a semi-autobiographical work about a married father of two daughters coming out. He had come out to himself as gay in 1984 and began the work, but out of sensitivity to his daughters, did not finish or publish it then. Nights In The Gardens Of Spain was filmed in 2010 with changes to the book, making the central character Māori rather than Pākehā (European) to more closely reflect Ihimaera's life. His story The Whale Rider was also made into a film. Link to Wikipedia biography