Cassandra Barnett (Raukawa, Ngāti Pākehā) worked as an art history/theory lecturer for fifteen years and published essays in many arts publications. She now writes fiction, essays and poetry about art, culture, belonging, indigeneity, environment, power, voice and motherhood in colonial contact zones. Her work has appeared in Landfall, Turbine Kapohau, Brief, Ora Nui and Black Marks on the White Page.
Harvest is an excerpt from a draft novel Takahi: The Trampling, set in Wellington Aotearoa over several time periods: the near future (2023), a more distant, post-calamity future (2056). It is about survivors forging new - and in some cases very old - ways of life amidst the debris of civilisation. In 2019 Cassandra is writer-in-residence at Zealandia Wildlife Sanctuary. She is also guest-editing 4th Floor literary journal, and is a finalist in the Pikihuia Māori literature awards.
Photo: Cassandra Barnett
Cassandra Barnett lives with her 6-year-old son in Ngaio.
