Watercress Tuna & the Children of Champion Street

Patricia Grace (Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa and Te Ati Awa) is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated writers. She has published over 35 titles, including novels, short-story collections, works of non-fiction and books for children, a number of which have been translated into te reo Maori. 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. She was also awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Oklahoma, in 2008. 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. Her book Cousins was made into an internationally-acclaimed film in 2021, directed by daughter in law Briar Grace-Smith and Ainsley Gardiner.