Changing fiction

18 April 2009 – Auckland-based author Witi Ihimaera, 65, is in the process of reworking earlier fiction saying that “as the author grows, so should their stories.” “Writers should be able to transform their stories in whichever way they choose. And even if they do, the originals will still be there,” Ihimaera says. Ihimaera, a former diplomat, became the world’s first Maori novelist in 1973 with the novel Tangi, which he wrote at the age of 28. The latest Tangi has been entirely rewritten and is twice the length of the original, while The Matriarch is now just a fifth of its former length. Ihimaera is the citizens’ chair at the University of Hawaii, a one-semester position that gave him a chance to finish writing The Trowenna Sea. He will then rework the last of his original texts, The New Net Goes Fishing, before crafting a fresh collection of short stories called The Purity of Ice. “How could I look my ancestors in the eye if I had not rewritten my books so they would become living, breathing, political people? I have a long line of ancestors to whom I am accountable. I always return to my source, which is the Waituhi Valley, where I was born.”