Patricia Grace
Patricia Frances Grace is a New Zealand Māori writer of novels, short stories, and children's books.
Her first published work, Waiariki, was the first collection of short stories by a Māori woman writer. She has been described as "a key figure in contemporary world literature and in Maori literature in English." She was awarded the 2008 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.Biography
Grace is descended from Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa and Te Āti Awa. She was born in Wellington where she received the majority of the education, first at St Mary's College and then at Teachers' Training College. She began writing at age 25, while working full time as a teacher in North Auckland. Her first published short stories were in Te Ao Hou and the New Zealand Listener.
Waiariki, her first published book, won the PEN/Hubert Church Memorial Award for Best First Book of Fiction. It was a collection of short stories and the first to be published by a female Māori writer.
Grace currently lives in Hongoeka Bay, Plimmerton. In the 1988 Queen's Birthday Honours, Grace was made a Companion of the Queen's Service Order for community service. In 1989, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Literature by the Victoria University of Wellington.
In 2006, she was one of three honourees awarded the Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement. Grace was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature, in the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours. In 2009, she declined redesignation as a Dame Companion following the restoration of titular honours by the New Zealand government.
Grace received an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the World Indigenous Nations University in 2016, conferred at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Ōtaki, for her literary accomplishments and her writing around Māori themes.
Grace is a patron of the Coalition for Open Government.Works
Novels
- Mutuwhenua: The Moon Sleeps, paul longman± 1978; Penguin Books Ltd., 1986; Women's Press Livewire, 1988; Cambridge University Press, 1991 ; French translation Au vent des îles, 2012.
- Potiki, ; translated into Finnish, ; German, ; French, ; Dutch, ; UHP Hawaii, 1995 ; Portuguese, Italian.
- Cousins, ; German translation,.
- Baby No-eyes ; French translation Au vent des îles 2006.
- Dogside Story. Long listed for the Man Booker Prize.
- Tu.
- Ned and Katina,.
- Chappy, ; French translation Au vent des îles, 2018.
Short story collections
- Waiariki, ; first collection of short stories by a Maori woman writer.
- The Dream Sleepers,.
- Electric City and Other Stories ; French translation Au vent des îles, 2006.
- Selected Stories.
- The Sky People.
- Small Holes in the Silence ; French translation Au vent des îles, 2014.
- Collected Stories, ; first three short story volumes.
- Text for Wahine Toa, a book of paintings by Robyn Kahukiwa, stories with women in Maori mythology.
It Used To Be Green Once-Date UnknownChildren's books
- 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 geranium .
- Areta & the Kahawai/ Ko Areta me Nga Kahawai.
- Maraea and the Albatrosses/ Ko Maraea me Nga Toroa.
