Sky Dancer

About the author

Witi Ihimaera is descended from Te Wha-nau A Kai, Te Aitanga A Mahaki, Rongowhakaata and Ngati Porou tribes and has close affiliations with other Maori tribes.

His novels include The Uncle’s Story, the award-winning The Matriarch, winner of the Wattie/Montana Book of the Year Award in 1986 and its sequel, The Dream Swimmer. He has won the Wattie/Montana on two other occasions — for Tangi in 1974 and Bulibasha, King of the Gypsies in 1995. His other fiction includes Pounamu, Pounamu, Whanau, The New Net Goes Fishing, The Whale Rider, Dear Miss Mansfield, Kingfisher Come Home and Nights In The Gardens of Spain. Ihimaera has also edited a major five-volume collection of new Maori fiction and non-fiction, called the Te Ao Marama series. His first play, Woman Far Walking, premiered in 2000 at the International Festival of Arts, Wellington. He was associate producer on the film Whale Rider, which premiered to international acclaim in 2003. Sky Dancer is his ninth novel.

Ihimaera is a former diplomat who has served with the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Canberra, New York and Washington. He now lives in Auckland and lectures in the English Department at the University of Auckland, specialising in creative writing and the literatures of New Zealand and the South Pacific.