Book promotes Pacific voices

Transcript

TAPU MISA: We need to be enabling more Pacific Island voices, more Maori voices, to be heard, to be audible, to be part of the national conversation about all sorts of important issues. Issues that aren't just relevant to us, but relevant on how we go forward as a country. So that was one of the chief motivations - is to ensure that we got a lot of Maori and Pacific Island stories and voices into the mainstream consciousness.

SARA VUI-TALITU: Tell me a little bit about how this book came about.

TM: So the book was really Geoff Walker, who is a former editor with Penguin Books and is now with Bridget Williams Books (BWB), and he approached us. He is a fan (I hope), and he approached us to put together a collection for BWB and we did that which took us quite a while as we have don’t have much spare capacity,  but are very happy to have it out now.

SVT: Tell me a bit about the content - so how did you pick the Pacific writers in this publication?

TM: We wanted to have a good representation across the board. So we've got Q and A interviews with Eliota Fuimaonono-Sapolu and Sefita Hao'uli,who is Tongan. We've got an interview that I am very pleased to have with Teresia , who died last month. She was the head of the Va'aomanu Pasifika and she set up the Pacific Studies programme at Victoria University. We have an interview with Gilbert Enoka who was basically the guy in charge of making sure that the All Blacks got their head in a good mental space. We have got a piece from Victor Rodger whose father was Samoan, and he's a playwright. He talks about his father's death and how that felt, beacuse his father was absent for most of his life. And then we have got an interview from Sima Urale and a piece from Laura Toailoa, who is our youngest writer. She is actually graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature (honours) next month, and is also an editor with Salient, a Victoria University magazine, so we have got a great selection.