Finally my thanks and tribute to my publisher, Geoff Walker, Jane Parkin, my editor, and Louise, Mary and Marilyn who helped me through the jungles of Vietnam.
About the author
Witi Ihimaera is descended from Te Aitanga A Mahaki, Rongowhakaata and Ngati Porou tribes, with close affiliations with other Maori tribes.
His novels include the award-winning The Matriarch, winner of the Wattie/Montana Book of the Year Award in 1986, and its sequel, The Dream Swimmer, published by Penguin in 1997. He has won the Wattie/Montana on two other occasions, for Tangi in 1974 and Bulibasha, King of the Gypsies in 1995, published by Penguin. His other fiction includes: Pounamu, Pounamu; Whanau; The New Net Goes Fishing; The Whale Rider; Dear Miss Mansfield; Kingfisher Come Home and Nights In The Gardens of Spain. Ihimaera has also edited a major five-volume collection of new Maori fiction and non-fiction, called the Te Ao Marama series. His first play, Woman Far Walking, premiered in 2000 at the International Festival of Arts, Wellington.
Ihimaera is a former diplomat who has served with the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Canberra, New York and Washington. He now lives in Auckland and lectures in the English Department at the University of Auckland, specialising in creative writing and the literatures of New Zealand and the South Pacific.