Listen: Tina Makereti

16 April 2026 First published RNZ

A celebrated novelist, essayist and creative writing teacher, Tina Makereti's latest work explores the intersections of her cultural identity, colonial history and the constant question of place. A senior lecturer at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, Tina has built a distinguished career examining the 'unknowability' of the Māori-Pākehā experience.

She is the author of Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings, The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke, and The Mires. Her book of essays This Compulsion in Us came out last year and has been shortlisted in the non-fiction finalists for the Ockham awards announced next month. She speaks to Kathryn Ryan about her life, including her parents separating when she was two, going to live with her Pākehā father, and not reconnecting with her Māori whānau until age 16.