This Compulsion in Us
Author(s): Tina Makereti
NZ Biography & Memoir | Kete Winter Reading Guide
In her first book of nonfiction, prizewinning author Tina Makereti writes from inside her many intersecting lives as a wahine Māori – teacher, daughter, traveller, parent – and into a past that is as alive and changeful as the present moment.
Included are frank and moving essays about the wāhine who have shown her many ways of being a Māori woman, the pain and dark humour of living with an alcoholic, a blue boob from breast cancer treatment, and the potential of art to return power to survivors of colonialism.
What if we could transform the events that made us who we are? What if there were a way back to the beginning? By turns lyrical, personal and critical, This Compulsion In Us is many things all at once, and an unforgettable portrait of one of Aotearoa’s foremost storytellers.
General Information
- :
- : Te Herenga Waka University Press
- : Te Herenga Waka University Press
- : 08 May 2025
- : 08 May 2025
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Tina Makereti
More About The Product
Tina Makereti (Te Atiawa, Ngati Tuwharetoa, Ngati Rangatahi-Matakore, Pakeha) is the author of three acclaimed novels: Where the Rekohu Bone Sings, The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke, and most recently The Mires. In 2022, her essay 'Lumpectomy' won the Landfall Essay Prize, and in 2016, her short story 'Black Milk' won the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize for the Pacific Region. Her first novel won the 2014 Nga Kupu Ora Aotearoa Maori Book Award for Fiction, also won by her short story collection, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa, in 2011. Alongside Witi Ihimaera, she co-edited Black Marks on the White Page, an anthology that celebrates Maori and Pasifika writing. Tina has curated exhibitions on social and cultural history at Wellington Museum, Nga Taonga Sound & Vision and the Courtenay Place light boxes, and been guest curator for book festivals. She has been awarded numerous residencies and presented her work in Australia, Frankfurt, Taipei, Jamaica, Canada and the UK. Tina teaches a Master of Arts in Creative Writing workshop at the International Institute of Modern Letters.
