December 29, 2021
Reclusive writer Keri Hulme opened door for Maori
The late poet and writer Keri Hulme is being remembered as a staunch supporter of other Mori writers.
The Kai Tahu and Kati Mamoe author, who found worldwide fame when her novel the bone people won the Booker Prize in 1985, died at her home in Waimate on Monday. She was 74.
Huia Publishers founder Robyn Bargh says while Hulme was a recluse who did not like to stray far from her long time home at Okarito on the West Coast, she made an exception to come to Wellington to judge the Pikihuia Short Story Awards and to talk to a Maori writers’ hui organised by the publisher.
“She did want to encourage other Maori writers, and for the winners, as judged by Keri Hulme, it was really exciting,” Bargh says.
“She wrote beautifully. She used to send us emails – that was always a treat.
“She could write real characters, real people.”
The Bone People was published under the imprint of Spiral, a long-running feminist collective that aimed to publish work which was overlooked or rejected by mainstream publishers.
For that project the collective was led by Irihapeti Ramsden, Miriama Evans and Marian Evans.
Two other “twinned” novels, BAIT and On the Shadow Side, were talked about but no manuscript has emerged so far.
“It’s sad there wasn’t another novel. The bone people was ground breaking. It would have been great to have another one, but she kept BAIT close to her chest,” Bargh says.
Huia published Stonefish in 2004, a collection of short stories and poems, and had been talking about other projects before ill health stemmed Hulme’s output.
Huia took Stonefish to the Frankfurt Book Fair, where it was picked up for a German translation.
“She was staunch about her intellectual property rights, so when we went to Germany she did all the negotiating. We talked to the people to set up meetings, and then she was the one who did the deal,” Bargh says.
One of those who made the pilgrimage to Okarito – but did not get to see the reclusive whitebaiter – was Helen Leahy, now chief executive of whanau ora commissioning agency Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu.
“We have lost a brilliant writer; a brave author and a creative spirit who inspired us to dream wildly; to create beyond possibilities; to think differently – and in all those ways I grieve the passing of a legend,” Leahy says.
Photo by David Alexander
The bone people “told uncomfortable raw truths around violence and sexual abuse; about racism and prejudice against difference. But it was also about connection; identity and creating worlds for us all. It needed to be told.”