Jacinta Ruru, Angela Walhalla and Jeanette Wikaira have spent six years working on the Te Takarangi project, a list of 150 Māori-authored non-fiction books stretching back to 1815. BOOKS OF MANA, a beautifully illustrated collection of essays, is a celebration of 200 years of Māori print literacy.

Kia ora Jacinta, Angela and Jeanette, lovely to be able to have this interview. The publicity material for Books of Mana says that ‘a profound sense that these Māori-authored non-fiction books and the knowledge they contain are taonga’. But this book bringing them together is definitely a taonga. Can you tell us about the work and project it’s based on? 

We had enormous fun putting together Books of Mana with our fantastic author team as we all we encountered so many amazing books, writers and stories, some we hadn’t known about before we started this project. It has been a fruitful and provocative critical project. We have learnt so much and can now see and feel this incredible connection to the long intergenerational pathway of non-fiction writing in book form.

It has been a long time in the making. The seeds for the book were planted in 2018 when we launched the Te Takarangi project, a list of 150 Māori-authored non-fiction books stretching back to 1815. For over 200 years Māori have been writing about our past, setting out our aspirations in words, and claiming a place for ourselves in academia.

But this story of 200 plus years of Māori non-fiction writing, research and scholarship was not well-known and we wanted to find a creative way to showcase this history to the widest audience possible.

So, with support from two major research collectives - Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Māori Centre of Research Excellence and the Royal Society Te Apārangi - Te Takarangi was brought into being, comprising a sample list of 150 old and new books designed to celebrate the contribution of Māori to knowledge advancement and bring greater visibility to their work.

Some of the books included on Te Takarangi list include work by Hoani Te Whatahoro Jury, Sir Apirana Ngata, Sir Peter Buck – Te Rangi Hīroa, Pei Te Hurinui Jones, Sir Hugh Kawharu, Dr Ranginui Walker, Emeritus Professor Ngahuia Te Awekōtuku, Sir Mason Durie, Emeritus Professor Atholl Anderson, Distinguished Professor Linda Smith, Sir Hirini Moko Mead and Professor Margaret Mutu.

The diversity of Māori scholarship, its breadth, weight and impact is so compelling that we had to create book to showcase this rich literary history so all New Zealanders can have an opportunity to come to know and love these books as much as we do.

There is a focus in parts of the book on writing and scholarship as activism. I imagine this emerged very early on in the history of Māori-authored non-fiction works? Can you tell us more about this?

Māori engagement with literacy is deeply tied to the history of colonisation and so anytime we write we are engaging in scholarship as activism. Even if our books are not always explicit about their activist intent, their very existence is a challenge to colonisation because we are telling our stories our way and in ways that make sense to us. Sharing knowledge is an act of resistance because putting our words in print is a statement of presence, of pride in identity, and empowerment.

Our work on Books of Mana has also helped us reflect on ways writers transform worlds, the way they tell stories and the sometimes ‘secret’ wars that are fought out across pages of research, ideas, and debates. Māori authors always know, at some level, that their writing is their activism.

‘This book is our way of providing a permanent public testament to the aspirations of the project.’ Is your vision that this book will help ensure the 180 works contained within its pages are available, and visible, to the people of Aotearoa in the future?   

Absolutely. An underlying goal of Books of Mana is to ensure all New Zealanders know about these books and, as an extension of this, know about Māori contributions to knowledge advancement. We seek to celebrate these books, to make them visible to as many people as possible, and encourage people to seek them out and read them. In fact, we hope that Books of Mana will inspire people to craft their own Māori non-fiction reading list, or to build their own personal library of Māori writing.

Knowing the books that form the Māori non-fiction literary tradition in Aotearoa enriches us all. We are impoverished as a country if we don’t know about the 200 year history of Māori writing, if we are not aware of the generations of Māori authors and if we don’t engage with the expansive collection of Māori non-fiction books.

What are the next steps for the project and the book? Will you hold a launch or public events to promote it?

We had a wonderful celebration of Books of Mana at the Hocken Collections in Ōtepoti on 12 February and we hope to do similar events across the country throughout 2025, as well as book festivals. Because Books of Mana is national in scope, and Māori writing is nationally and internationally significant, we plan to take every opportunity to talk about it to as many people as we can.

We have plans for a website and will continue to expand our list and keep it up-to- date. That’s particularly important because Māori non-fiction writing is flourishing at the moment with the likes of Ngahuia Te Awekōtuku’s blazing memoir, Hine Toa, to the monumental Toi Te Mana, a celebration of Māori art and creative expression, short-listed for the Ockhams. Our Takarangi list reveals the stunning achievements and history of Māori writing and it will continue to grow as long as Māori continue to write non-fiction books about us as Māori.

We seek to encourage more critical engagement with the Māori non-fiction writing tradition. These books are taonga that are alive with insights and luminations, complexities and power, books that are ripe for further exploration and intellectual adventure.

Books of Mana was published on the 3rd February 2025 and is in bookstores now.