Modem Maori anthology

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33941, 6 September 1975, Page 7

Modem Maori anthology

Maori authors writing in Maori or English now have an opportunity to contribute to an anthology of contemporary Maori writing. Anyone writing in the Maori language may have work considered for inclusion In a book to be published next year by Heinemann Educational Books (N.Z.), Ltd, »nd the Queensland Uni ver- i sity Press. The two editors of the anthology are a Christchurch writer, D. S. Long, who is editor of the Edge Press, in Victoria Street, and Witi Ihimaera, who is this year’s recipient of the Burns fellowship, which provides a grant to a New Zealand writer to allow a full-time year writing. Mr Ihimaera is at present In the English department at the University of Otago.

They will be selecting from novels, poetry, plays, local tribal histories, reminiscences, and anecdotes, and songs with which the musical notation may be printed. The book will also include reproductions of contemporary Maori art. Mr Short said that a substantial amount of material had already been gathered, but that they were hoping for more.

The anthology will be one of a series of books on Pacific writing, and is expected to be sold world-wide, in hard cover and paper-back editions. He thought that it would be of several hundred pages, but could not yet estimate the selling price. Their review of material for the book will close at the end of this year, and the book will be published at the end lof next year.