KUPU Māori Writers Festival Returns to Rotorua with Reo Māori Focus and Global Vision

Moeawa Fransen Ruakiri Fairhall | KUPU Māori Writers Festival Returns to Rotorua with Reo Māori Focus and Global Vision

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Rotorua will host the fourth KUPU Māori Writers Festival next week, celebrating Māori storytelling across poetry, fiction, screenwriting, and translation.

The two-day festival runs from October 17 to 18, followed by the Pikihuia Awards at Te Puia on October 19 – marking their 30th anniversary and first time outside Wellington.

This year’s KUPU includes its first full reo Māori day and a tribute to pioneering scholar Mākereti Papakura, who posthumously received her Oxford degree 100 years after studying there.

Festival Kaihautū Ruakiri Fairhall says the event is about nurturing the next generation of Māori writers.

“Right till now, in four years, we’ve created writers. I think that was the main focus of KUPU was not just to have a festival and to talk about the books that we produce, but it’s really to encourage the next generation to share their kōrero, to write their kupu, to sing their kupu, to rotarota their kupu, and so on and so forth,” says Fairhall.

Fairhall says the festival’s future vision includes taking KUPU international, creating a global platform for Māori literary voices.

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