From the Centre

With photographs and quotes from her many, hugely loved books, Patricia Grace begins with her grandparents and parents and takes us through her childhood, her education, marriage and up to the present day in this touching and self-deprecating story of her life, the life of a writer, of a Maori woman and of a teacher. It expresses the love for family and for ancestral land; shows the prejudices she had to face and that made her stronger; and tracks her career as a writer.

‘We live by the sea, which hems and stitches the scalloped edges of the land.’

Renowned writer Patricia Grace begins her remarkable memoirs beside her beloved Hongoeka Bay. It is the place she has returned to throughout her life, and fought for, one of many battles she has faced:

‘It was when I first went to school that I found out that I was a Maori girl . . . I found that being different meant that I could be blamed . . .’

As she shows, her experiences — good and bad, joyous and insightful — have fuelled what became a focus of her life:

‘I had made up my mind that writing was something I would always do.’

Patricia Grace is one of New Zealand's most celebrated writers. She has published seven novels and seven short-story collections, as well as a number of books for children and works of non-fiction. Among numerous awards, she won the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards in 1986 for the much-loved Potiki , which also won the New Zealand Fiction Award in 1987. She was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001 with Dogside Story , which won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Fiction Prize. Tu won the 2005 Montana New Zealand Book Awards Fiction Prize and the Deutz Medal for Fiction and Poetry. Her children's story The Kuia and the Spider won the Children's Picture Book of the Year and she has also won the New Zealand Book Awards For Children and Young Adults Te Kura Pounamu Award. Patricia was born in Wellington and lives in Plimmerton on ancestral land, in close proximity to her home marae at Hongoeka Bay. Novels by Patricia Grace- Mutuwhenua- The Moon Sleeps, Potiki, Cousins, Baby No-eyes, Dogside Story, Tu, Chappy. Short story collections- Waiariki, The Dream Sleepers and Other Stories, Electric City and Other Stories, Selected Stories, Collected Stories, The Sky People, Small Holes in the Silence. Books for children- The Kuia and the Spider/Te Kuia me te Pungawerewere, Watercress Tuna and the Children of Champion Street/Te Tuna Watakirihi me Nga Tamariki o te Tiriti o Toa, The Trolley, Areta and the Kahawai, Maraea and the Albatrosses, Haka/Whiti te Ra!. Non-fiction- Wahine Toa, Ned & Katina- a True Love Story.

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