Verb Wellington in partnership with Taki Rua Productions brings Witi Ihimaera’s new book Navigating The Stars off the page, in a special Garden Party performance reading with live music directed and led by Maiava Nathaniel Lees.

Witi Ihimaera was born in Gisborne in 1944 and began his career as a writer in 1970. His books Pounamu Pounamu (1972) and Tangi (1973) were the first collection of short stories and novel to be published by a Maori. Ihimaera has subsequently become one of the world’s most important indigenous writers with highly regarded novels and fiction collections to his credit like The Matriarch (1986) and The Whale Rider (1987 made into an internationally successful film in 2002) Bulibasha (1995) and Sleeps Standing (2014). His two memoirs Maori Boy (2015) and Native Son (2019) will soon be joined by a third. The landmark Navigating the Stars was published in 2020 and has received rave reviews

Ihimaera is also an editor of 19 books of New Zealand and Maori culture art and fiction. He edited with Tina Makereti Black Marks on the White Page (2017) and Purakau (2018) with Whiti Hereaka.

He lives in Auckland.

The Garden Party appearances
Sunday 21 Feb
10am, Performance of stories from Navigating the Stars by fantastic actors, by Taki Rua with script written by Witi Ihimaera. Soundshell, Wellington Botanic Garden.

1pm, Monsters in the Garden, Soundshell, Wellington Botanic Garden, with Elizabeth Knox and Kim Hill

Books