Books of Mana
180 Māori-Authored Books of Significance
Edited by Jacinta Ruru, Angela Wanhalla and Jeanette Wikaira
Books of Mana celebrates the rich tradition of Māori authorship in Aotearoa New Zealand. It reveals the central place of over 200 years of print literacy within te ao Māori and vividly conveys how books are understood as taonga tuku iho – treasured items handed down through generations. In this beautifully illustrated collection of essays, some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most renowned Māori thinkers join the editors in a wide-ranging kōrero about the influence and empowerment of Māori writing.
Release date: 3 February 2025
The Intimacy Bus
By Janet Charman
In The Intimacy Bus, award-winning poet Janet Charman reckons with some of life’s heaviest traffic: bereavement, grief, ageing, loneliness, gender, sexual identity, power and inequality. Along the way, the collection gathers up encounters with friends and strangers, and reflections on matters as various as Korean telenovelas, classic films, personal memories, ‘modern life’, real estate, ‘sex treats’, companion animals, a favourite hairdresser, finding joy, a grandmother’s politics and the rapper Psy.
Release date: 27 March 2025
Mad Diva
By Cadence Chung
In Mad Diva, poet Cadence Chung takes us wheeling and diving through a scintillating whirl of ideas, experiences and imagery. Operatic in scale, by turns lush and spare, Mad Diva is a high-wire performance from an extraordinary emerging talent. The gorgeous jostles up against the grotesque. Romance and glamour have equal billing with the blood-streaked and the gritty. In opera houses, art galleries, dive bars, bedrooms; in the purple light of Whitcoulls at dusk and in Wakefield Street at midnight, they keep on aiming for their high Cs, keep on testing the world for meaning, acceptance and love.
Release date: 10 April 2025
Preachers, Pastors, Prophets
The Dominican Friars of Aotearoa New Zealand
Preachers, Pastors, Prophets draws on a rich collection of archival material and oral interviews to tell the story of the Dominican friars of Aotearoa New Zealand. More than the history of a religious organisation, this is the story of a group of dissimilar – often eccentric – individuals who worked in a range of ministries; of the faith that united them as brothers and gave purpose to their mission as preachers; and of their impact on the communities and churches they served in Aotearoa New Zealand. Preachers, Pastors, Prophets is not a sacred history. It’s a human history. Like Grant’s earlier history of the Dominican sisters, Preachers, Pastors, Prophets offers a window into a particular world – one that is fast disappearing.
Release date: 29 April 2025