Author interview: Tina Makereti
We chat to New Zealand author Tina Makereti about her new novel, The Mires.
The Mires is one of the most acclaimed New Zealand fiction releases of 2024 and has taken critics and readers by storm, gathering both commercial and critical plaudits from both.
The novel is about three women who give birth in different countries and different decades and who, in the near future, become neighbours in a small coastal town in Aotearoa New Zealand. The novel is both perennial and of the moment: it looks at the effects of toxic racism, the climate crisis and the patriarchy, and does so in a page-turning and ultimately hopeful fashion. It's a tender and fierce read and confronts the question, 'what do we do when faced with things we don’t understand'? Is our ultimate impulse to destroy or connect?
About Tina
Tina Makereti
Tina Makereti is a New Zealand author of Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore and Pākehā descent. She was born in Kawakawa and raised in different locations in the North Island. She has a BA in Social Sciences, a PGDip Māori Studies, and an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington. Her PhD used indigenous literature and perspectives to explore ideas of identity and how this is understood and transmitted following colonisation.
Tina's writing has appeared in many magazines, anthologies and literary journals and has won many awards, including the inaugural fiction prize at the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards for her first book, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa, and the 2014 Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Award for Fiction for Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings. Tina’s 2018 novel, The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke, was longlisted for the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Her non-fiction and short story writing has gathered numerous awards.
In 2013, Tina was the New Zealand Film Archive Curator-at-Large and created a series of exhibitions that explored the social history of childhood in Aotearoa New Zealand.
We were thrilled when Tina took time out from her very busy schedule to discuss The Mires, and we wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to her.
This interview was done in conjunction with Caffeine and Aspirin, the arts and entertainment review show on Radioactive FM. and was conducted by host Tanya Ashcroft.
You can hear our interview with Tina below, and browse and borrow her work further below:
