Tina Makereti — This Compulsion In Us

Te Herenga Waka University Press 2025 Paperback 320 It's not beautiful, not at all, when it's there in front of you, but writing transforms. In her first book of nonfiction, prizewinning author Tina Makereti writes from inside her many intersecting lives as a wahine Maori - teacher, daughter, traveller, parent - and into a past that is as alive and changeful as the present moment. Makereti stands at the foot of her mounga and pays careful attention to tohu. With her tupuna at her elbow she casts around for home, meets taonga in museums, and writes her way towards her father. She walks through the darkness with others, in awe of Te Kore, Te Po and Te Ao Marama-- a universe of potential being, dark and light. These are some of the kaupapa that underpin her work and her way of moving through the world, both enlivened and haunted by a compulsion to write. Very Good