| Kia ora tātou,
May brought several highlights for AUP in a buzzing month for New Zealand books all round.
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards saw Sophie van Waardenberg and Philip Garnock-Jones each take home Best First Book prizes in their respective categories (Poetry; Illustrated Non-Fiction), while Tā Pou Temara became the first person to win Te Mūrau o te Tuhi, the Māori Language Award, twice.
As the week unfolded, we launched Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer: I te Ao o te Reo, Witi Ihimaera Smiler’s new memoir, to delighted audiences at the Auckland Writers Festival. His Saturday morning session with Stacey Morrison and Kingsley Spargo was reportedly a tear-jerking, inspiring highlight of the whole programme. Sereana Naepi and Philip Garnock-Jones also had audiences rapt at their sessions. Me whakanui tātou ka tika!
Read on for more about our three June books, including launch events, panel talks and more.
Kia mataora tātou.
Nā mātou iti noa nei, te whānau o AUP
|
|
| |
NGĀ PUKAPUKA HOU | NEW BOOKS |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Te Tiriti, Equality and the Future of
New Zealand Democracy
Dominic O’Sullivan
In this major work, the leading Māori political scientist Dominic O’Sullivan draws on theories of republicanism and the commonwealth to challenge understandings of Te Tiriti as a partnership between races, or between Māori people and the Crown.
O’Sullivan enables us to see a future for Aotearoa in which political authority and responsibility belong to everyone and should therefore work equally well for all; a country where Māori people, as much as anyone else, bring their tikanga to public life; and a society where the Crown is no longer the word we use to describe government.
For scholars, policymakers and political leaders, for Māori and Pākehā, for all of us imagining a respectful and inclusive future for our island democracy, this is essential reading.
In stores 11 June. |
|
| |
|
Portrait
Jackson McCarthy
A crowd gathers like black water, the mind forgets the mind, memories come knocking in the hallway, a pair of hands perfect the moon: Portrait is the debut poetry collection by Jackson McCarthy. Desire, time, vision, beauty, and solitude count among this collection’s obsessions – obsessions rendered with such close-up intensity that even Death seems to reverse or suspend its trajectory. Interrupting this lyrical streak, we hear from a narrator whose tragicomic dedication to art over life results in fraught, surreal misunderstandings of the world around him. Portrait, too, is invested in its own artfulness. Playing with layers of voice and identity, these poems appear to paint portraits of their subjects – but do so blending observation with invention, memory with deep fantasy.
In stores 11 June. |
|
| |
|
Ngāti Kuia He Pūtake, Hei Pakiaka Ora | A History
Madi Williams
Ngāti Kuia are tangata whenua of Te Tauihu-o-Te-Waka-a-Māui (the northern South Island). Descended from the ancestress Kuia, their whakapapa sits within a rich and complex Māori lineage, connecting with the stories held by neighbouring iwi – particularly the other Kurahaupō waka groups. Their networks also stretch towards the head of the country, linking to iwi originating from the East Coast of Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island), such as Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu, Muaūpoko, and ultimately back to the Polynesian homelands, Hawaiki.
Drawing on hundreds of whakapapa, pūrākau, waiata and karakia recorded in nineteenth-century tribal manuscripts and court records, Madi Williams presents Ngāti Kuia history in Ngāti Kuia voices. From the stories of such tīpuna as Kaikaiāwaro and Hinepopo, through early encounters with neighbouring iwi and European settlers, to recent events such as the Treaty settlement process, this expansive account places Ngāti Kuia at the heart of the region’s living, layered history.
As Te Kenehi Teira observed during the Ngāti Kuia Treaty claim, the history of the iwi resembles ‘one huge jigsaw puzzle – you have to find all the pieces and put them together’. In this book, the pieces finally sit alongside one another.
In stores 11 June. |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
NGĀ PUKAPUKA E WHAI AKE NEI | FORTHCOMING BOOKS |
|
| |
|
AUP New Poets 12
Zephyr Zhang, Loretta Riach & Anuja Mitra Edited and with a foreword by Anne Kennedy
AUP New Poets 12 brings together three careful observers of the everyday and the ineffable. Anuja Mitra, Loretta Riach and Zephyr Zhang tell of wandering through cities, ghostworking from office cubicles and sweating through heat waves and tax season; of grappling with questions of alienation, belonging, lust and grief.
Though irreverence and a generational malaise might hover at the poems’ edges, tenderness forms their centre, as when Zhang encounters a house on the back of a truck in the small hours of the morning:
I would say look! how lucky we are to know that magic still happens if we stay awake to see it
With humour, vulnerability and flair, these collections navigate being young in precarious times – and mark the arrival of three confident new voices in New Zealand poetry.
In stores 9 July. |
|
| | | NGĀ KAUPAPA | UPCOMING EVENTS |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | BOOK LAUNCH
Join us in Wellington or Auckland to celebrate the launch of Portrait, the debut poetry collection by Jackson McCarthy. |
|
|
Thursday 11 June, 6pm
Unity Books 57 Willis Street Wellington
To be launched by Anna Jackson. |
|
| |
|
Thursday 25 June, 6pm
Lamplight Books G01/100 Parnell Road Auckland
To be launched by Sophie van Waardenberg. |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Witi Ihimaera Smiler and Elizabeth Smither at the Taranaki Winter Fest, 18 June – 11 July |
|
| |
Join Witi Ihimaera Smiler and multi-instrumentalist Kingsley Spargo for a Speakeasy session on Witi’s new book and language-learning journey. |
|
|
Sunday 21 June, 2pm
4th Wall Theatre 11 Baring Terrace New Plymouth |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Elizabeth Smither is one of three treasured local writers speaking in Taranaki Taonga. With David Hill and Lauren Keenan, Elizabeth will reflect on her latest works and her longstanding connections to Taranaki. |
|
|
Sunday 28 June, 4pm
4th Wall Theatre 11 Baring Terrace New Plymouth |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal. Image by Maarten Holt, Fairfax Media |
|
|
|
| |
‘The political question, for now and into the future, is not that sovereignty has been usurped, but whether its distribution can be made just.’
— Dominic O’Sullivan, from the Introduction to Te Tiriti, Equality and the Future of New Zealand Democracy |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| BOOK LAUNCH & PANEL TALK
Where next? Te Tiriti, Equality and the Future of New Zealand Democracy
In his latest book, leading political scientist Dominic O’Sullivan looks beyond the polemics and binaries, and toward the forms a non-colonial state and Te Tiriti-based democracy might take in Aotearoa – and how we might get there together.
He is joined by Lara Greaves and Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal to unpack these timely topics and celebrate the launch of his book at a free event in Auckland this July.
Thursday 2 July, 5.30pm
Studio One – Toi Tū
1 Ponsonby Road
Auckland |
|
| | | | WINTER POETRY SERIES AT TIME OUT BOOKS
Throughout July and August, Mt Eden’s Time Out Books will be hosting a series of events celebrating the city’s poets. Put all three dates in your calendar – but first up is the launch of AUP New Poets 12, featuring an introduction from series editor Anne Kennedy and readings from the poets.
Tuesday 7 July, 6pm Time Out Books 432 Mt Eden Road Auckland |
|
| | | TŪRAMA AROTAHI | SPOTLIGHT |
|
| |
‘“Joy.” I wrote that word three times in my notes app as I sat, spellbound, by Witi Ihimaera Smiler.’ — Clare Mabey, ‘Auckland Writers Festival 2026: a selection of reviews from the record-breaking books fest’, Spinoff
Shop Witi’s book and other titles featured in the Auckland Writers Festival programme and Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. |
|
| | | | | | | |
|
|
|
|
