SOURCE: Orr, Bridget. “The Maori House of Fiction.” In Cultural Institutions of the Novel, edited by Deidre Lynch and William B. Warner, pp. 73-95. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996.

In the following essay, Orr discusses Maori writing in the context of New Zealand's writing history, remarking on the lack of critical analysis of indigent Maori texts by mainstream critics.

1

In 1973, Witi Ihimaera published Tangi, the first novel by a Maori writer. In the twenty years since that first text emerged, many other novels by Maori, including Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme, Heretaunga Pat Baker, and Alan Duff have appeared, achieving recognition not only in Aotearoa/New Zealand but internationally. Although it is problematic for a variety of reasons to identify the texts produced by these authors as “Maori novels,” the combined oeuvre provides a clear challenge to the dominant narrativization of New Zealand history and society.¹ Until recently...